Match Thread: Bolton Wanderers v Lincoln City | Page 17 | Vital Football

Match Thread: Bolton Wanderers v Lincoln City

Not a knee-jerk reaction of the back of conceding three, and I haven't seen the game anyway so couldn't tell you what the defence performed like but forgetting about the result in isolation because it is what it is, I hope that back 6 serves as a another wake-up because even if you discount losing the quality of Rushworth and Poole, a back three of Jackson, Eyoma and O'Connor as a unit isn't good enough. Roughan isn't a LWB and Sorenson, despite performing admirably towards the back end of last season, has hardly spent any time at RWB in his career and I'm sceptical he's a long-term option there. That's how weak and disjointed our back six with one injury (discounting Montsma for obvious reasons).

We're relying on jack of all trades and masters of none aside from O'Connor and Jackson who are specifically CB's. We need a first choice CB, because a) Jackson will miss games and b) Roughan will have a rough patch this season as a young lad and will nee taking out. Versatility is good to a point, but in defence it feels like we've got too much.

A couple of defensive signings are needed.
 
Luke Imp said:
Not a knee-jerk reaction of the back of conceding three, and I haven't seen the game anyway so couldn't tell you what the defence performed like but forgetting about the result in isolation because it is what it is, I hope that back 6 serves as a another wake-up because even if you discount losing the quality of Rushworth and Poole, a back three of Jackson, Eyoma and O'Connor as a unit isn't good enough. Roughan isn't a LWB and Sorenson, despite performing admirably towards the back end of last season, has hardly spent any time at RWB in his career and I'm sceptical he's a long-term option there. That's how weak and disjointed our back six with one injury (discounting Montsma for obvious reasons).

We're relying on jack of all trades and masters of none aside from O'Connor and Jackson who are specifically CB's. We need a first choice CB, because a) Jackson will miss games and b) Roughan will have a rough patch this season as a young lad and will nee taking out. Versatility is good to a point, but in defence it feels like we've got too much.

A couple of defensive signings are needed.
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Clearly still work to do. We haven't as yet replaced Poole and the jury is still out over Jensen. Two key appointments. The LWB position is of concern to some.I don't think Roughan is a wing back tbh.
 
A very good post by Luke Imp and somewhat backing up my thoughts on why we should have given Walsh another year. Admittedly he would struggle at times with injury but experienced left footed centre backs who can play the ball out intelligently are very very hard to come by at this level.
 
57harry said:
Clearly still work to do. We haven't as yet replaced Poole and the jury is still out over Jensen. Two key appointments. The LWB position is of concern to some.I don't think Roughan is a wing back tbh.
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Totally agree with your post. We have been so blessed with keepers over the last few seasons. Rushworth was standout. On todays match the first sighting of Jensen didn’t impress. But it’s the first match of the season plenty of time to show what he can do.
 
57harry said:
Clearly still work to do. We haven't as yet replaced Poole and the jury is still out over Jensen. Two key appointments. The LWB position is of concern to some.I don't think Roughan is a wing back tbh.
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Roughan definitely isn't a wingback- he wasn't last season and he won't be this season (even if he plays in that position).
 
There is certainly room for us to improve and I am sure we will; my only concern is doing it quickly enough.

Bishop and Brown to come back. Walker to get up to Match fitness, then Match sharpness. Reeco-Hackett to overcome his current niggle.

Hamilton to be able to remember the names of his team mates and adjacent players to work on their patterns of play.

Then we are looking to add two more players (at least) to the squad.

Finally, I suspect there might be some work to be done on the training ground this week on 'how to mark the correct opponent at set-pieces'.

Once we have some positive movement on some of the above then we can make a judgement on what our season to Christmas will look like.

That said - we're clearly doomed !!!
 
Just back- what is it about Bolton.....(the North West city not the American soft rock balladeer).

Firstly, it wouldn't be right to recognise Bolton were the better team today- more astute, smarter, cleverer etc. They deserved the win and that's that.

From a team perspective, there were some good spells -first half, apart from a set piece simple headed goal from Bolton, we were pretty much even although we didn't trouble their keeper to make a save.

Formation looked like 5-3-2 (or 5-2-3, Mandroiu seemed a bit fluid in his role). Not sure it worked with Walker today- he really was short of match fitness

Second half we started brightly but again gave a goal away on a set piece and then a Jackson OG. Bolton's game management was excellent both at 2-0 and 3-0.

Were we awful today? Not at all but we weren't good and we weren't really at average.

However it's game one- Mandroiu was probably the pick of the bunch- good cross field passes, some neat through balls etc. Hamilton had a decent debut too.

Our strength last season was defensive resilience and, losing Poole and Rushworth, we will need to work on that this season. Five CB/WBs who all know each other but we had a fragility today HOWEVER don't understand how controlled Bolton were either.

House was kept in the pocket of Bolton's No.5 all game- Walker started and looked knackered after 10 mins and was subbed at half time with Hackett coming on.

Not a disaster nor the result I wanted. Derby lost at home to Wigan, Reading lost at home, Pompey drew at home, Vale got slammed by 7...it's only one game. Onto Tuesday!
 
As a realist after the 3-0 loss to rovrum. It was clear we would sweep all aside and easily win the league…
Let’s just hope we have. 40-50% win ratio.
 
I thought the Rotheram defeat was bit concerning to be honest. Yes a friendly, but the last friendly before the season started so both teams were taking it seriously. And a very ordinary Rotherham side (as evidenced by their trouncing today) beat us quite easily.

As everyone has said, the first concern is our defence. Eyoma switches off too often so can't be a first choice. The jury is still out on Jensen - Bolton had about 12 corners today, and every one (apart from the first) was swung into our six yard box. And he didn't come for any of them. The last few seasons high balls into the six yard box have always been a goalie's ball, and we have had decent centre backs to win any high balls outside the six yard box. His uncertainty is affecting normally reliable centre backs like Jackson and O'Connor who have looked well under par as a result.

In addition, Roughan is not a left back. Sorensen might be, but its too early in his career there to say.

Of course, I realise its a long season and the first game doesn't really mean anything. We will learn more after Tuesday and Saturday as to whether today was a blip. If its not, at least the transfer window will still be open for a few more weeks.
 
abebaby said:
Last season our defence was our strength. Against the top sides we sat back back soaked up the pressure and fortunatly took our chances when they came. Against the sides at the bottom where we had to come out more we suffered due to the lack of quality further forward. This sesaon I think we think we will try to play a more expansive game which will probaly see the trend reveresed. Although we werent good today I dont think we deliberately sat back as we did last season. Today went pretty much how I expected it to but I still think we have the players and a system that will see us right by the end of the season.
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Must admit my viewing was 100% we sat back and hoped to catch them on the break. In that was what MK said the plan was.
 
Today re-enforced where we are weak. Roughan moves across to left wing back due to injury. He is defintely not a left wing back. TJ Covers the vacant right centre back position forcing O'Connor to left central defender. We are short of cover at both left Wing back and left central defence and huge questions remain about TJ. Looks like any glue is missing, he is now at Portsmouth. Also, I am very worried about the GK position. We got beaten by a faster, fitter, stronger, more skilful and canny side which happens. They had a heady mix of physicality, height and really good technical players. We were not on the same page.
 
Just home after a freezing cold August day in the rain and two trains cancelled due to strike action. Everything was going so well today until the game started.

A few random thoughts without reading this thread through:

* Definitely looked a goal kick to me - I was sitting right in that corner of the ground.

* Two goals conceded from unmarked headers right in the centre of the box. I cannot remember that happening at all last season.

* Hamilton looks excellent and was chopped down every time he got the ball - Bolton obviously remembered him getting the winner for Accrington at the Toughsheep at the end of last season.

* House was repeatedly thrown to the ground by lumbering donkey Almeida Santos and the ref booked House for complaining about it.

* Sorensen should have scored, or passed it to Walker who would have; 1-1 at that point may have created a different game.

* Walker looks far from fit.

* Despite lots of people having high opinions of him, Roughan worries me.

* Jensen doesn't like coming off his line.

* Bolton passed the ball far faster than we did; they got into our half with great ease while we could barely get the ball into theirs; we looked too slow generally.

* I'm not sure what our game plan was; whatever it was, it didn't work.

* As much as I hate to say this, there can't be many better sides in L1 than Bolton; the positive is that we won't be facing that every week.
 
JAYIMP said:
We were. Walker looks long way from being fit yet. House playing somewhere on the right for some reason. Untested formation. Poor defending on set pieces which was our strength last season. No one to change the game from the bench. We were rubbish and what's even worse Bolton wasn't that great. All they had to do to get three points was turning up for the game.
Well deserved defeat and disappointing performance.
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Bolton were very good indeed. Slick purposeful passing, lots of quick movement, using the full width of the pitch, mixing up long and short games to great effect, and more.
 
mikeosullivan said:
Jay is right. We were poor today. We had moments in midfield when Erhahon and Hamilton gelled well, and Mandroui as usual had the occasional good moment.

But their keeper did not have a save to make that I can recall, Bolton looked as though they were playing well within themselves, and our back 6 looked like total strangers, despite 5 of them being here last season.

One game of course does not make a season, but if anyone thinks we did OK today, they have set a very low bar for what they expect going forward.
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Mike, can I ask how you watched this game? It wasn't available for streaming in the UK.
 
Scotimp said:
Bolton were very good indeed. Slick purposeful passing, lots of quick movement, using the full width of the pitch, mixing up long and short games to great effect, and more.
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Bolton is a very good team but they didn't even have to switch to a higher gear. They've played decent game and that was more than enough.

Another thing I've noticed is that they were looking like a team with proper preseason behind them which isn't something you can say about our lot.
Hopefully it's just a kick in our backside that we needed ...
 
Further thoughts. I mentioned previously that Roughan and Sorensen had poor games, mainly because they were undisciplined and didn’t seem to have a clear idea of their role and positions. Roughan in particular - he has said his preferred position is left-sided CB. I wasn’t sure where he was playing yesterday. One minute he was LB and the next he was LWB, but he had no discipline or positional sense about either. He needs more coaching on his role and positional play. What concerned me equally was that the lack of FB/WB cover seemed to affect Jackson and O’Connor who were getting drawn out of position to cover gaps created by Sorensen, Eyoma and Roughan. Jensen didn’t help - he had an Ok game but considering in his opening interview he claimed one of his strengths was dominating his area and claiming crosses, I didn’t see much evidence of it in 90 minutes, which is a criticism I have levelled at Wright. For 6’ 5” keepers they should be flattening players to claim crosses and reaching above them.
Early days and I have every expectation that things will get better, but on yesterday’s performance our defensive frailties concern me a little and I think we need another CB in fairly soon.
Finally, felt a bit sorry for Ben House, who got some really unfair treatment from Santos throughout. Lack of protection from an incompetent referee is one factor, but it is part of his learning curve. He needs to moan less to the ref (which only got him an unnecessary booking) and find ways of dealing with experienced CBs who will, as yesterday, use every trick in the book to keep their man quiet. Better movement, pulling his man out of position to either create space for himself or his team-mates is one way. I have no doubt he will get there.
 
Scotimp said:
* Definitely looked a goal kick to me - I was sitting right in that corner of the ground.

* House was repeatedly thrown to the ground by lumbering donkey Almeida Santos and the ref booked House for complaining about it.
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Not seen the highlights (not sure I will), but from my view (right behind goal) it looked a corner.

House could be in for a very heavy yellow card season with the new dissent rules. Hopefully he doesn’t get too many because we need him pressing!
 
A far from ideal start, a 0-3 away defeat, but not a major concern at this stage of course. We do look like a team where a season has started a few weeks too early - which is a little disappointing, but I think we’ll be back on track soon enough, although we do need a couple more recruits.
With both of my sisters supporting Norwich City, bless ‘em, days like today take me back to 2009-10, a season when the Canaries won League One as Champions. Their opening game that season was a 1-7 home defeat to Colchester United. So, plenty of time…
 
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