welcome back hh.i would have that team but with rlley/ricketts ahead of mears,no sordell,ngog up front with eagles in the hole behind him.would drop bogdan but know absolutely nothing about lonergan so that would only be a hunch.agree with the left side having left footed players,i made this point myself a while back,ricketts did a good job at left back when he returned last season but should never have been the long term answer.this is alonsos 3rd season and must now be given his chance.

Welcome back HH. Good summary as always.

Prob better not reading whole forum

Can I also take this opportunity to remind you that you entered my prediction comp. Still plenty of time to get the next set of predictions in, and loads of Champions League bonuses available.

http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/browseByTag/CEF

The Ngog situation is the one unknown so far. Those stats do suggest that he should start ahead of SKD.

I get the feeling that most people on here don't rate Ngog at all, but at this level he should be given a chance. Hopefully he is over his injury problems and we will see soon enough. As long as OC picks him of course!!!!

None of the above explains tha fact that we are a laughing stock in defence and have done absolutely nothing to address this in our pre-season, hence lessons have not been learned.

We have been totally battered by the poor to average sides so far this season and we haven't played a good side yet.

Coyle has no idea who to play where or what formation to adopt and has already started making players scapegoats by dropping them.

I thought he had lost the plot last season but this season I know he has.

We are not going to solve all our problems or turn Coyle into a competant manager in 14 days, so don't tell me everything will come good, like you did all last season.

It wont and we have missed a trick not replacing Coyle during this break.

It would be madness to drop Eagles and play CYL. Lee has been absent influence wise in all games. Yes he is coming back from injury but let him do that in the reserves we can't afford to drop points with players at 80%. Eagles has been by far our best player. He must be the first name on the team sheet at the moment.

I am all for relegating SKD to the bench at 35. The problem is he has done much better than Sordell who has flattered to decieve. How do you tell the club captain that your dropping him for a player he knows has played much worse. That's dressing room suicide. There are two things to consider. If as you say and I agree there is far too much long ball then that has to be addressed by the coaching staff not SKD. Also it is up to Sordell to play out of his skin to oust SKD and he just hasn't.

Bricks/Petrov - Do you two live together??? You always come on here at exactly the same time

Bricks - so much time spent discussing midfield and attack on here, when you are spot on - the defence is where most of our problems are. Even Messi and Ronaldo would struggle to get us to win while we are shipping goals like we are.

HH welcome back. One thing that your article makes clear that after a summer of reflection and the opportunity to play against teams much more evenly matched week in week. Coyle has left himself with far more questions than answers. The real sticking point is that changing personnel has rarely made any significant difference under coyle so how he answers the questions hanging over him is lost to me.

i would have ngog because he is the best of a bad bunch.as for coyle yes he has lost the plot.cannot believe when he was given the chance to keep his job this season he did not change his coaching staff and assistant manager.these guys are obviously his pals but they will be his downfall.the fans have now lost patience and i expect if we get beat by watford coyle will be sacked next sunday.

Kevin Davies on Footy Focus!!!!

Didn't we spend good money for Ngog and Sordell? If I were chairman I would like to know why I spent millions for two bench warmers. I can't exactly remember but last season wasn't Ngog subbed out every game he started?
Well anyhow as for right now..... one of our problems is that there is no outlet ball from defense. The lump up to SKD is almost pointless. We need one or two players with pace to run into space and keep the ball while the team moves up field. Even the die hard SKD fans must admit that pace is not SKD's strength. I'd have Sordell & Ngog upfront and mostly stay there....not back defending.

Ricketts to right back....Alonso at left ..... possibly Lonegan in. Wlyde I have never seen kick a ball but from reports he should at least be on the bench. Mavies one or two more poor games and bench him.
With Wheater & Holden to come back we should be able to field a decent team.

OC????? not sure about anymore.

What has Alonso actually done to warrant people having faith in him...?

He's an awful Leftback with no positional sense and no bottle for the championship.

Totally agree on that one mallorca.

2.2mil was not jusified for a kid playing for a B team just because it began with 'B'.

We keep laying out decent money for 'potential' like N'gog, Sordell, Eaves & Alonso and forget about the present. Purchasing for the here and now should always be a priority and 'potential' is a luxury when the going is good.

Also, if Tim Ream is a defender, Mavis is a midfield orchestrator. I think Coyle got him in based on computer game stats!

I wont go into details but if what I have heard is true I dont even want Alonso at our club anymore. We need a left-back.
As for the OP I agree with most of it and those results are no coincidence with and without Ngog. He is a much better player than Davies and he actually keeps the ball and tries things. All he needs is the confidence of scoring a few goals and he will take off. There is a reason he could pick and choose from the best teams in Europe when he was young. I see a rough diamond.
Riley with the big man attitude? I can understand Afobe but not Riley.

Badrid?

i think the eaves signing was coyle taking a punt on a young player just not come off.the sordell and ream signings was just chucking away the gary cahill money neither to me has got it.as for alonso i think he deserves at least a run in the team maybe even on lelt side of midfield making our left side stronger defensively.so many goals come from that side because the likes of ricketts,petrov and eagles are not doing their duty.

Can't agree with you on Alonso just yet .....he needs a good run in the team to get confidence in his place and settle down. He seems to have some decent ball control and joins in the attack. May be carp ....but I want to give him a good chance first.
Riley has shown enough to get a good run also. Ricketts can cover all four back spots in case of need.
Eaves ???? no idea ....never seen him kick a ball.....can't write him off yet.
Ream .....not sure ....so far I don't see much but again more games needed.
We have another guy .... Wlyde who was getting rave reviews in pre-season ....not even on the bench.
I can't figure some things that go on at our club.

Comment deleted by Article Creator

We were defensively frail from the wings last season...we conceded more goals from the wings than any other team. Ricketts helped to plug the gap on the left hand side...but we conceded far too many goals from poor play from both Robinson and Steinsson. This year Sam Ricketts has been missing and out of position far too many times. Such as with the goals against Hull. Nowhere to be seen in the 1st and 3rd goals..and in the second one, he and KD bumped into eachother, in the process took out Bogdan, and left the man mountain that is Abdoulaye Faye a free header to score. Shambles.

We've just not looked solid at the back... Ream is struggling to get to grips with the physical nature...i thought he was a very welcome addition last season, he looked a much better player in the PL. Knight seems to be pleasing fans, but weve still conceded 7 goals in 4 games. Not good enough.

Knight makes too many individual errors or suffers from frequent bouts of laziness during games. Such as with Hull's first goal, poor from Ream who didnt clear it, but Knight made no reaction to get a block in, he just watched, whilst Mears tried to get across to block....he managed to get to it, but unfortunately, his deflection looped over Bogdan, rather than over the bar. We've seen Knight do this many times before. Frustrating.

Spearing will help protect the defence, but with that ridiculous 451 with KD up front we saw on Saturday, there was never going to be a good outlet for us to attack ourselves and relieve pressure.

You can put Baines & Ashey Cole back there and we would still ship goals.
Releif of the constant pressure is the problem...nobody can put a foot on the ball in the middle or upfront.
Also has there been an improvement at right back since Steiny? I can't see it ..... Steiny was no worse and had real fire in his belly.
I can say the same of Robbo .....we have shipped more goals by poorer teams since both have left......
not saying they were any good mind you....just an opinion.

The bare bones of this mess is we have a bloke in charge who is not up to it! Rioch ( a man respected and loved by the whole town) google him kids!.Big Sam a man who created a club from crumbs but brought a streetwise mentality ,had lads like Warhurst,Hendry and Gundi ,Frandsen in the team.This team lacks character n balls,in fact I hate watching them now,its embarrassing now.

It's not all about Rioch and Allardyce in our recent history IMO, nuns. I think Colin Todd's contribution to our club both as Rioch's number two and as manager is often glossed over. Will any of us ever see a Bolton Wanderers team utterly dominate a league season from start to finish the way his team did? We were invincible that season. He resigned out of disgust at Frandsen being sold - he was a man of principle.

Not sure how to reply to that nuns. I know that our time watching Bolton is very similar. Your bio and your comments have shown me that we have experienced similar experiences over a similar timescale.

We may disagree about OC, but your comment is one i'd expect from a fan who started watching Bolton in 1991.