[Archived] Bolton Game 0-1

[ABBEY]

just been talking to a bolton fan and he didnt give me any stick said it was sham!

[Nuclearsox]

just been talking to a bolton fan and he didnt give me any stick said it was sham!

And then did you release him from the headlock?

[Wiggy]

Neill has been utter garbage for about 2 seasons. All he does is foul, get booked, give free kicks away then hoof it down the line either a.) out of play or b.) give it to an opposing player.

LOL, you absolute moron.

i think from now on there should be a IQ prerequisite of above 50 to enter this forum.

that would put you sh*t out of luck

I have to say that we have the worst Premiership fullbacks since... oh er...

Grayson and Davidson. Matteo has absolutely no confidence, every time he receives the ball his immediate instinct is to look inside to see if he can roll it to a centreback. If this option isn't on then he looks like a rabbit caught in headlights and out comes the big left boot. Result? Loss of possession.

Neill looks more and more like an athlete and less and less like a footballer. Unlike Matteo, he seems to have a little Aussie swagger. He strides forward purposefully, looks to see if he can roll it inside. If this option isn't on then out comes the big right boot. Result? Loss of possession.

[MarkisaRover]

Neill - Not really tested defensivly, but his attacking game and passing game was poor to say the least. The lad really cant pick out a pass.

Sure the defense wasn't tested tonight, that i agree with you.

But to say Lucas CAN'T pick out a pass, is rubbish. the guy was spot on with most of his passes, if not all

And did you forget he probably came the closest to scoring tonight for the rovers.

He continually ran up the flank, but didnt have many options. Emerton didnt make it easy for him either.

Emerton looked like his heart wasnt in it tonight.

Err you obviously havent watched Lucas for the last few seasons then have you?

Plus i counted at least four occasions where he played a long ball to someone, which didnt even find its target.

Try rewinding the tape and watching the game again.

[RovertheHill]

On the replay where ref Bennett is talking to Nolan after the 2 footed tackle on Sav, the camera shows the pair of them. Nolan isn't saying much and Bennett looks over to his left (where the Rovers players were stood) and to my lip-reading says "He's Going". At this point Nolan becomes very, very animated and clearly protests his case. Bennett then raises his eyebrows and shows the yellow. Who says refs don't change their minds?

[SuperStella]

Apparently Diouf might be leaving Bolton - Martin Scorcese and Steven Spielberg are after signing him on because they feel he deserves to win an oscar after last nights performance!!

Me personally would like to see him in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

[Kiwiwannabe]

just been talking to a bolton fan and he didnt give me any stick said it was sham!

My mate who supports Bolton said, "well, I have to agree with what Big Sam said"

I won't be talking to her again!

Edited January 25, 2005 by Kiwiwannabe

[cn174]

Where was Nissa?

On the bench! God knows why because although its not his best position he's a lot better than Matteo at left back.

[yorkblues]

nissa should be are left back

[Blueboy Downunder]

i said on another thread a few weeks ago now that diouf (in no un-certain terms) was an absolute disgrace to pro-football. on this occasion, not only did he blatently cheat his way to a penalty (according to terry payne on south african sports tv last night) but he also could have incited a riot with his arrogance and goading of the fans. probably a really good thing that sam subbed him straight away. surely to goodness the fa....have simply got to step in and not only give him another warning, but this epsiode last night will hopefully make them think again about using tv as a way of ruling on things like this. i aint saying to stop the game but from all the angles that a second ref could see from the tv monitors in the tunnel he could say yeah or nay...in this instance. it would not surprise me that although the bolton players might think he is one of their best players....they might be getting sick and tired with him bringing a bad name to fellow proffessionals.

as i said to my friends here in south africa last night...."i can handle being beaten, if we have simply been outclassed and outplayed but what happened last night is simply not acceptable"....not just as a rovers fan, but as a football fan in general.

[seahawkdad]

i thought the referee had a good game, and made only 1 wrong call, which unfortunately cost us the game.

The referee had already screwed up the first major decision of the evening before he awarded the penalty; the challenge from Nolan on Savage was x-rated and clearly warranted a red card.

As did, according to the Laws, Brad's foul, since he denied an obvious goal scoring opportunity. Since Brad wasn't sent off, I can only assume that the ref must have been having second thoughts about the legitimacy of his call

Edited January 25, 2005 by seahawkdad

[modes98]

i thought the referee had a good game, and made only 1 wrong call, which unfortunately cost us the game.

The referee had already screwed up the first major decision of the evening before he awarded the penalty; the challenge from Nolan on Savage was x-rated and clearly warranted a red card.

As did, according to the Laws, Brad's foul, since he denied an obvious goal scoring opportunity. Since Brad wasn't sent off, I can only assume that the ref must have been having second thoughts about the legitimacy of his call

He looked unsure but didn't want to change his mind. He could have gone to his assistant and had a chat and then changed his mind. But player reaction could ahve told him it wasn't a penalty. As for his lack of red cards for both diouf(elbow) and nolan(2footer on sav) he should be investigated as to why he did not send them off and why he didn't send brad off if he was so sure it was a penalty!

[1864roverite]

he should be investigated on being incompetent

[John]

I dont particularly want to see Bothroyd play for us ever again.

[thenodrog]

I dont particularly want to see Bothroyd play for us ever again.

Is somebody at the door? Has the phone just rung? Is your tea ready? If the answer is NO to all those then why did you finish your post at that point? There are a few that I dont particularly want to see play again!

[Exiled in Toronto]

What a load of sanctimonious twaddle about Diouf in this thread.

I wasn't too happy to see it either; but many of the "Outraged of Eanam's" spouting off will have cast their votes in the no 11 slot of our all-time team for another proven penalty-winning diver - his swallow-dive at the Hawthorns 2 years ago was just as bad.

Plus, am I alone in being unimpressed with several aspects of our play in the penalty incident?

- Matteo being hopelessly left for dead

- Friedal either being too slow to come out or starting from too far back

- Friedal palming the ball back where it came from - not bad luck, bad goalkeeping

- No-one following up the penalty

Would any of those have stopped the goal? Who knows- but we certainly made it easy for him.

[tsnuf]

Just watched the game last night (wasn't gonna stay up till 4 am to watch the live match!) and am disappointed with the result... I thought we were pretty good in the first half, but the second got a bit iffy.

I don't know why everyone thinks Mokoena was poor.. I can't say he did too much wrong. However, Matteo is definitely not a left back. I thought Neill and Todd were the stars in defence. Savage faded in the second half, Thompson wasn't as effective as in previous matches, Emerton and MGP were decent. If Bothroyd could stay on his feet a little better, I think he'd have tucked at least one of his chances away.. Gally was nearly invisible. Stead wasn't, but he was shockingly bad. Johnson is too tiny...

I'm praying for striker before the window closes.

[DaveyB]

As did, according to the Laws, Brad's foul, since he denied an obvious goal scoring opportunity. Since Brad wasn't sent off, I can only assume that the ref must have been having second thoughts about the legitimacy of his call 

From where we sat in the DE it looked as though the ref was going to book Diouf - he certainly didn't point to the spot straight away, and was running towards the cheat - when suddenly he realised who it was, and presumably that he was already on a yellow card, and so decided that it would be easier to give the penalty rather than send him off.

Obviously not 100% sure of this, but there was certainly a time delay between the whistle and the point to the spot and he certainly ran towards Diouf first, then stopped and pointed to the spot.

What a load of sanctimonious twaddle about Diouf in this thread.

I wasn't too happy to see it either; but many of the "Outraged of Eanam's" spouting off will have cast their votes in the no 11 slot of our all-time team for another proven penalty-winning diver - his swallow-dive at the Hawthorns 2 years ago was just as bad.

The difference being that Duff didn't deliberately cheat to win the penalty - there was contact, but outside the area, not his fault if the ref decides to give a penalty for it - Duff probably didn't know if he was in or out of the area as it was fairly close.

- No-one following up the penalty

Heard someone moaning about this as we came out of the ground. The penalty taker has a 10 yard head start on everyone else, so when the ball rebounds directly to him as it did on monday, then no-one else really has a chance of getting there first.

Edited January 26, 2005 by DaveyB

[McClarky]

Apparantly 24 January is statistically the most depressing day of the year, and that was before the game. That was the worst advert for Premiership football ever. The game was a boring slog between 2 poor teams who had no idea how to create anything. The passing from both teams was a disgrace and I'm sure you would see better in Scotish Division 3. Our full backs were terrible and we needn't have bothered having forwards out there for the amount of times they were passed to.Was Nelsen injured? If not, why wasn't he playing, and what about Nissa? Neill and Matteo have got to go.

To make things worse the game was settled by a piece of blatant and unpunished cheating. He gets away with it, the ref gets away with it and they are all free to carry on next week. No wonder there is so much cheating when there is no incentive not to cheat. The FA should give him a retrospective red card and a 3 game ban for that but it aint gonna happen is it. The club needs to get together to stamp it out but thats not gonna hapopen either. The attitude of all the bolton people and the TV people is also sickening. Its just a shrug of the shoulders and a "part of the game". Its only part of the game because no-one does anything about it.

I don't think I would be alone in saying that scum like Dioeff drive people away from football. Why do we pay £25+ to watch a game where your money just goes to line the pockets of some money grabbing low-life who is encouraged in his antics by the rest of the game.

[MCMC1875]

Vote McClarky

[salothsar]

I have no big problem with a player going down when there is illegal contact, even if slight, when he is no position to gain an advantage. Then its up to the ref to decide whether the contcat was sufficient to be a foul.

However, when there is absolutely no contact whatsoever and then 2 steps and about 5 yards later the player sticks one leg behind the other to make it appear that he was tripped (as someone else stated - this is something he must have practised) he must be at the very least booked for blatant cheating. If video replays are necessary to achieve this then so be it

[den]

Skysports suggesting an 8 month ban for Diouff.

Yes please

[Blue blood]

One of the worst games I've seen, both teams were bad, and the way in which Rovers lost the game was sickening.

For me there's some real issues, most of which have been highlighted already.

Matteo - anyone could do a better job at left back. Defensively he's not too bad unless he gets turned or he has to sprint. Sadly as a full back both these things happen quite regularly. His offensive prowess is terrible - the worst in the team. I cannot think of one pass forward which found its man. Whilst the whole team was poor in possession Matteo stood out in giving the ball away. The guy can't cross or attack to save his life, and a better full back could have capatilised on a decent performance by MGP and ganged up on the Bolton full back. Nissa, Jay, Gray or even an injured Gresko can't be as bad at left back.

Boothroyd - the worst performance I have seen in a Rovers shirt - which is quite impressive considering. What's worst the guy didn't seem to care. He should never play for the first team again. Gally had a poor game too but to be fair Gally likes to move about and run the channels and play off a centre forward, yet he didn't get many decent passes which really didn't help his game. Besides at least he looked bothered about not playing well.

The midfield - I hate to say it but we missed Ferguson. Not one midfielder was capable of playing a pass that would hurt the opposition. Tommo especially doesn't look to have the vision to be a centre mid. We need someone who can play the killer pass and slow the game down.

My biggest gripe was the fact we gave possession away far too easily. Peversely I think this is also the most encouraging thing as if we get this sorted, I think we'll be a lot closer to a decent team then we appear. The reason we don't score many is because we don't have much of the ball. I mentioned this shocking display of giving away the ball after the Charlton game. Again today I can hardly remember us having the majority of possession for over a couple of minutes. And if you don't have the ball you ain't going to score. This is what let us down as defensively we were quite solid.

The encouraging bit is that when we do have the ball we do a fair bit with it. Looking at the first half of the game we probably had about 25-30% possession. However in that time Neill forced a good save from the keeper and MGP had a couple of good chances as well. Our possession to chances ratio was pretty good. If we can keep the ball better, and continue with our current chances to possession ratio, we should be getting a fair few more goals. A proven striker would also be nice (Bellamy on loan?) as we really need to take the few chances we are creating.

Finally Diouf should recieve a three match ban for diving - there's no question it was a dive and if the FA are serious about cutting down on this they won't get a better or clearer opportunity to send out the right message. I won't hold my breath though.

[RovertheHill]

What a load of sanctimonious twaddle about Diouf in this thread.

I wasn't too happy to see it either; but many of the "Outraged of Eanam's" spouting off will have cast their votes in the no 11 slot of our all-time team for another proven penalty-winning diver - his swallow-dive at the Hawthorns 2 years ago was just as bad.

Plus, am I alone in being unimpressed with several aspects of our play in the penalty incident?

- Matteo being hopelessly left for dead

- Friedal either being too slow to come out or starting from too far back

- Friedal palming the ball back where it came from - not bad luck, bad goalkeeping

- No-one following up the penalty

Would any of those have stopped the goal? Who knows- but we certainly made it easy for him.

Speaking of twaddle...

A cheat is a cheat. And no goalkeeper should ever save a penalty, so any penalty save is a bonus. To describe it as bad goalkeeping that it went back to the taker just illustrates your lack of knowledge.

[American]

One interesting comment I heard on Fox Sports World Report was that he almost did too good a job saving it. They said he got over there too quickly, which is why it was able to deflect back in front of goal. Had he been a little slower, he would have been able to push it wide.