We travelled up to Bolton this evening to battle the team top of the form league, but level on points with us and sharing a WLD record. Aneke not in the starting line up and Innis not to play, brought Burstow into attack and Pearce into the back line.
Football purists will not have found much of anything at all in performances from both sides. But Bolton were marginally more organised than us and ultimately came away with all three points.
We conceded in the first ten or so minutes from a calamitous episode that began when the referee blew the whistle for Sean Clare after he fell to the ground from an innocuous clash. When play resume, we went from attacking down the right flank to being boxed into the corner, with Bolton organised around us. The took possession and booted the ball down the line for their striker to run on to. Famewo failed to deal with the ball properly, as it came off his head and into the strikers path. The striker rounded MacGilveray and slotted the ball home. We’ve gifted too many opportunities through poor decisions and awkward lapses in concentration. We now how a hole to dig ourselves out of.
Poor play on both sides resulted in lots of frustrations. This culminated in a very bad, late tackle on Dobbo that could have been a straight red and could have broke Dobbo’s leg. The referee was miles away and only gave a yellow. Fortunately, Dobbo returned to the action without any lingering effects.
Aneke and Lavelle came on at about seventy minutes. We changed shape, moving to a diamond and began to apply some pressure. Fraser then came on. Soon after the changes, Aneke got his head on the end of a Fraser cross and brought us level.
An equal share of the points wasn’t to be however. Clare made a needless tackle that gifted Bolton a free kick down our left that resulted in a goal. We had a chance or two after, but another equaliser was not on the cards.
Poor, disappointing, and frustrating all evening. I have a headache.
Bolton 2 Charlton 1
Over to you.
Comments
Very harsh don’t think we deserved to lose that .. but again lot of key moments went against us .. sending off , weak free kick it went against us tonight
Plus points Laville and Fraser both looked pretty good ..but again McG had one save to make in 96 mins … but you can’t give teams a head start like we did tonight .
Need a reaction.
Can't Pass
Can't mark their man
Can't defend
Stupid fouls given away every 2 minutes.
From Jacksons point of view. Please change the formation!!
Too many individual mistakes at the wrong times - Portsmouth result (we always do well at Fratton Park) glossed over our away form this season, we're 20th in that table - So felt very much business as usual once again tonight
Of course the whole complexity of the game could have changed, as Bolton deserved to be down to ten men, but they were already 1-0 up... Getting a man sent off doesn't impact games like it used to anymore, players probably practice the scenarios all the time in training.
Positives
- Scott Fraser is off the mark in the assists table.
- Jackson tried something other than 3-5-2 for once.
Equally, we need to defend better, opposition teams are given way too much space and time in and around our box time again which is never afforded to us.
Crap individual errors also a feature, Famewo’s for the goal and other times; Pearce more than once and Lavelle when he came on did some weird header thing back too.
Charles is a great player at this level, I feel sorry for Accrington who were mugged at £300K. To think loads on here wanted us to get a big PL team in the FA Cup, our defence was ragged by Charles.
Need good recruitment this summer, a January window where we bought in two loanees who cannot even get in the squad is not hugely promising!
deflated.
Clare (idiot fk), Gilbey, Matthews, DJ meh
Morgan mixed
Washington, Dobson tried
Mac couldn't do a lot.
Fraser and Chuks brighter
Lavelle... err... Good to see him back.
Jacko... left the changes way too late.
People on the match thread saying Bolton are average, two bob, etc. They've got Santos at CB, Dempsey at CM, Charles at ST. That is a spine I'd swap for ours in a heartbeat. Better than anything we've got.
Game after game, our players can't control the ball, can't weight a pass, run into blind alleys, show no concept of game management... The only logical answer is that they are just not good because it's constant.
I don't know how we can expect to beat a team like that on their own turf when players like Famewo are having one of the worst performances of recent years. Our defence in general is scary, as is most of the team. What's more scary is that we will be keeping most of these players for next year.
And sounds worse.
He's struggling to find the right words to answer Scotty's questions without launching a series of F bombs.
Bolton sort of did to us what we did to Wimbledon on Saturday. They weren't good, but they just had that little bit of quality, particularly from a set piece, and work rate to get themselves over the line.
Just seeing Chuks' header again, and what a header it is. He leaps high and the ball is a bit behind him and he not only makes good contact but gets power on the header.
And watching back that Clare foul before the equalizer, and it's a very silly one to give away.
I felt the playoffs were beyond us before this game, and still feel that way. There's no shame in losing to the form team in the division away from home, but we didn't really deserve anything tonight. I view the rest of this season as an audition for next season. There are the makings of a good squad here, but there are some players who will have to have a strong run in if they want a contract.
Positives: Fraser and Lavelle will be good next season.
A rubbish game. 70 minutes of unadulterated crap from Charlton then three positive substitutions and an astute (albeit overdue) tactical change by Jacko brought us right back in it, only to concede again quickly to leave us chasing the game again.
I’m particularly disappointed with our discipline. We gave away so many stupid and pointless free kicks and predictably paid the price in conceding from a resultant free kick yet again. I lost count of how many yellow cards we racked up but most of them were totally avoidable.
Defensively, we were all over the place. Famewo was badly at fault for their opener and looked uncertain throughout. Pearcey was given the run around by Dion Charles. We very badly missed Ryan Inniss but it was good to see Sam Lavelle come in and do well.
Scott Fraser did well, with a great cross for our goal and he was a tad unlucky not to grab a late equaliser. He’ll be a very good player for us and I’d love to see him start next match.
Really frustrating night that must surely, finally, put paid to any lingering hopes of a late run to the play offs.
There are no words that can describe my frustration at this team. From back to front we were beyond shocking.
I can’t remember seeing a worse defensive performance from Famewo Pearce and Clare.
We have ZERO creativity in midfield, Morgan tried and he was our best player (which isn’t saying much) but no one turns and plays a positive pass.
DJ does not want the ball, he never shows and goes out of his way to make a stupid run so the player in possession doesn’t find him.
Tactically, big big questions have to be asked. What were the tactics today? How many times have we dropped a performance like we have today? Too many times, it was so so bad.
There is no passion and no fight from the majority of this team. We need a total and ruthless clear out if we want to compete next season.
His boring tactics and strange lineups...
Shit League
Shit Season
I would leave Famewo out next match he makes so many mistakes and can’t pass.
Shit ref again all major decisions went Boltons way. Bolton didn’t really need second gear to beat us in the end.
Turned sound off again Brown over analysis the game to death.