Bolton v Everton - friendly

I'm on a roll of 3 straight win if we do this... so COYB

Still no DCL , Pickford or Danju... in fact there are LOADS missing

Am watching this on the OS. It's only pre-season so I'm not reading too much into it. Nevertheless it's a bit frustrating to watch, a shit final ball or the wrong decision being made too frequently.

Young, along with McNeil, already looks our best player. Dobbin has looked OK without being anything special. Gomes is exactly the same player as he was when he went on loan - tidy in possession until, well, until he gets dispossessed. Iwobi has been sloppy but keeps going. Virginia made a couple of good saves at the end of the half, he hasn't looked bad in general.

Second half was mostly the kids, some of whom are painfully raw of course. Other than that, can't read anything into 45 minutes each. Lots of first teamers didn't play tonight. I missed the early part of the second half, out with the dog.

I suppose my one takeaway from watching a good chunk of tonight's game is that I'm ready for the new season to start. With a sense of trepidation of course given how we've been for the last two seasons. But everyone starts level on the first day, and these pre-season games mean fuck all really.

In summary, bring it on, I'm ready (oh shit).

Tonteau wrote:I didn’t watch the game but I like that Dyche is playing the kids. Not many of them will make it but our squad is so painfully thin that he may as well get a decent look at most of them and they get some experience with the first team. I can absolutely wait for the season to begin. The sheer amount of emotional energy it takes to get through games, especially nervy 1-0 wins, is overwhelming. I’m not sure I’ll cope if we do a rerun of last year.

I did see a tweet earlier that said "Everton are back in two weeks, so enjoy your next couple of weekends" which seems about right.

I do have a takeaway from tonight - Ashley Young is old, but he's class. He should easily be our starting LB, it's not even close IMO. We need more players with a bit of class and nous. Our mindset would change considerably if we could just bring in one or two meaningful additions before the Fulham game. After last season, a new striker should be non-negotiable, so we'd better have a Plan B and even a Plan C if Toure doesn't happen. I fear for our collective mental health if it ends up being Che Adams on loan on deadline day.

As for the kids, it would be unfair for me to say much based on a few minutes each. Mills doesn't look that quick, Dobbin looks like he could be a reasonable squaddie with scope for improvement, Warrington always looks like he has something about him. Most of them are still raw and developing. I wouldn't be putting too much hope on any of them making an impact this season but, again, I've not seen enough of any of them to big them up or write them off with any degree of confidence. Maybe there are one or two pleasant surprises lurking amongst them. As you say, even a few serviceable squaddies would be nice.

I've only watched bits of the friendlies, but my gut feeling is that we will be relying on not getting any injuries at all if we are to avoid another relegation battle.

Even allowing for Garner and maybe DCL to come back into the squad, and Danjuma to make an impact, we look well short of quality again. I agree with Rotts, Ashley Young looks a big upgrade on what we had last season and if we end up with Coleman on the right and him on the left as our starters, we'll probably pick up more points than starting with Patterson and Mykolenko despite them being in their sixties.

From what I saw of the kids, none of them are very good. Usually, even with a raw kid, you can spot the stand-out talents. It was obvious in someone like Jack Rodwell or Ross Barkley. It's pretty clear in Jimmy Garner. I see none of that in our current crop, least of all Dobbin as a striker.

I'm not particularly looking forward to next season. The missus had a word with me about it and, to be fair, she has a point. When I originally got my season ticket, my plan was to go to half the games, maybe a bit more. Last season and the season before, I hardly missed a game except at Christmas or when we were away on holiday. I got sucked in by the sheer pressure of the fight. On the one hand, the last two seasons have been the most exciting in decades and some of the games have been absolutely incredible at Goodison. But it hasn't been much fun, and it's not what I envisaged five years ago when I managed to get the ticket. I pictured endless mid-table nothingness with the odd cup-run if I was lucky, and me living a normal life.

So this season, whatever happens, I'll go to no more than a dozen games. I'm looking forward to it, but if it's another relegation battle, it can be fought without my ever-presence.

hairy cataract wrote:I've only watched bits of the friendlies, but my gut feeling is that we will be relying on not getting any injuries at all if we are to avoid another relegation battle.

Even allowing for Garner and maybe DCL to come back into the squad, and Danjuma to make an impact, we look well short of quality again.  I agree with Rotts, Ashley Young looks a big upgrade on what we had last season and if we end up with Coleman on the right and him on the left as our starters, we'll probably pick up more points than starting with Patterson and Mykolenko despite them being in their sixties.

From what I saw of the kids, none of them are very good.  Usually, even with a raw kid, you can spot the stand-out talents.  It was obvious in someone like Jack Rodwell or Ross Barkley.  It's pretty clear in Jimmy Garner. I see none of that in our current crop, least of all Dobbin as a striker.

I'm not particularly looking forward to next season.  The missus had a word with me about it and, to be fair, she has a point.  When I originally got my season ticket, my plan was to go to half the games, maybe a bit more.  Last season and the season before, I hardly missed a game except at Christmas or when we were away on holiday.  I got sucked in by the sheer pressure of the fight.  On the one hand, the last two seasons have been the most exciting in decades and some of the games have been absolutely incredible at Goodison.  But it hasn't been much fun, and it's not what I envisaged five years ago when I managed to get the ticket. I pictured endless mid-table nothingness with the odd cup-run if I was lucky, and me living a normal life.

So this season, whatever happens, I'll go to no more than a dozen games.  I'm looking forward to it, but if it's another relegation battle, it can be fought without my ever-presence.

I don't blame you. I'm not investing much emotional energy in another relegation battle. Or rather, I'm not going to let them drain as much out of me as they have done in the last couple of seasons. This isn't a deliberate choice, it's just how I know my mind will work. Even the old "we must survive this season to be in the PL for the new stadium" will just bounce off me. That's obviously not to say that I'll give up on them, more that I'll just accept the fate that awaits us as a more palatable alternative to the stress and worry of what might happen.

Fortunately, I think there is a reasonable chance that it won't come to that this season. I still maintain that last year was a freak PL campaign in which, bar Forest, all of the smaller, promoted or usually shite teams were decent, leaving the relegation scrap to some big clubs and long-standing PL stalwarts. I don't see that happening again. We have a manager who knows what he's doing and gets a lot more right than wrong. And we do appear to have a meaningful transfer kitty, even if we might be struggling to spend it right now.

We have brought in Young and Danjuma. We need a striker, another winger and a CB. And any additional squaddies they can rustle up from somewhere. Of those, it's essential that we sign a striker before the season starts. If we can bring in three decent players in those three positions then I'll feel, well, not confident, but genuinely hopeful that we can have a "not pretty but did the job" sort of a season. By that I mean 13th or 14th with a relegation battle never far away, but kind of kept at arms length. A Walter Smith sort of season, if you will.

I only watched the highlights 'cos I ain't paying £8.99 to watch a friendly. I thought Dobbin looked lively.

As for next season, if Danjuma is decent, and we if can sign a decent striker, we should be ok (barring major injuries, points deductions, meteor strikes etc).

Rotterdam 1985 wrote:

hairy cataract wrote:I've only watched bits of the friendlies, but my gut feeling is that we will be relying on not getting any injuries at all if we are to avoid another relegation battle.

Even allowing for Garner and maybe DCL to come back into the squad, and Danjuma to make an impact, we look well short of quality again.  I agree with Rotts, Ashley Young looks a big upgrade on what we had last season and if we end up with Coleman on the right and him on the left as our starters, we'll probably pick up more points than starting with Patterson and Mykolenko despite them being in their sixties.

From what I saw of the kids, none of them are very good.  Usually, even with a raw kid, you can spot the stand-out talents.  It was obvious in someone like Jack Rodwell or Ross Barkley.  It's pretty clear in Jimmy Garner. I see none of that in our current crop, least of all Dobbin as a striker.

I'm not particularly looking forward to next season.  The missus had a word with me about it and, to be fair, she has a point.  When I originally got my season ticket, my plan was to go to half the games, maybe a bit more.  Last season and the season before, I hardly missed a game except at Christmas or when we were away on holiday.  I got sucked in by the sheer pressure of the fight.  On the one hand, the last two seasons have been the most exciting in decades and some of the games have been absolutely incredible at Goodison.  But it hasn't been much fun, and it's not what I envisaged five years ago when I managed to get the ticket. I pictured endless mid-table nothingness with the odd cup-run if I was lucky, and me living a normal life.

So this season, whatever happens, I'll go to no more than a dozen games.  I'm looking forward to it, but if it's another relegation battle, it can be fought without my ever-presence.

I don't blame you. I'm not investing much emotional energy in another relegation battle. Or rather, I'm not going to let them drain as much out of me as they have done in the last couple of seasons. This isn't a deliberate choice, it's just how I know my mind will work. Even the old "we must survive this season to be in the PL for the new stadium" will just bounce off me. That's obviously not to say that I'll give up on them, more that I'll just accept the fate that awaits us as a more palatable alternative to the stress and worry of what might happen.

Fortunately, I think there is a reasonable chance that it won't come to that this season. I still maintain that last year was a freak PL campaign in which, bar Forest, all of the smaller, promoted or usually shite teams were decent, leaving the relegation scrap to some big clubs and long-standing PL stalwarts. I don't see that happening again. We have a manager who knows what he's doing and gets a lot more right than wrong. And we do appear to have a meaningful transfer kitty, even if we might be struggling to spend it right now.

We have brought in Young and Danjuma. We need a striker, another winger and a CB. And any additional squaddies they can rustle up from somewhere. Of those, it's essential that we sign a striker before the season starts. If we can bring in three decent players in those three positions then I'll feel, well, not confident, but genuinely hopeful that we can have a "not pretty but did the job" sort of a season. By that I mean 13th or 14th with a relegation battle never far away, but kind of kept at arms length. A Walter Smith sort of season, if you will.

Yes, I hope - and in some ways believe - you're right. This season will be different for the reasons you give, particularly that I think Luton and Sheff Utd will be shitter than last season's promoted teams. It will be a slightly weaker league, hopefully. And in Dyche we have the perfect manager to grind out results and maybe a lower-mid table finish. And that's fine with me. Back to moaning about boring KITAPO footie, scraping 1-0s over crap teams and be plucky losers against the big teams.

What I haven't told the missus is that, although I'll be going to less PL games, I'm expecting a massive cup run which will mean even more matches this season