The famous Manny Road blog

why cant we do that every match

I’ve read a couple of things about the match and I’m not too happy. I didn’t see the match and I’ve only seen that goal, so I obviously can’t make a fully informed opinion of how we played but judging by the teamsheet and what I’ve read, I’m not impressed.
Chris Basham at right back? Where the hell did that come from? Okay so Nicky Hunt isn’t the greatest right back in the world – but at least he has experience. So I expected to see him on the bench. Nope. Three outfield players on the bench and a keeper? What a joke. What a kick in the teeth for him and other reserve and youth players. What’s wrong with putting Zoltan Harsanyi on the bench? He’s scored a few for the reserves hasn’t he? I just don’t believe that Megson looked at the teamsheet at 2:30 and thought “Yeah, we’re better off without the other subs. We’ll be fine.”
Sky Sports (http://tinyurl.com/9vpsg3) say that Riga was subbed on and off in the match, and he wasn’t too happy about it.
“Bolton sent on Temitope Obadeyi for substitute Riga – who stormed off down the tunnel – in a bizarre tactical switch by manager Gary Megson.”
Can’t blame him when there are only three subs on the bench. I’d love to hear why he was brought off. What do you think Chris? Did you watch it?

Hi Ben, yes I was at the game. I was confused when they only read 3 subs out too but presumed there must have been some kind of stomach bug in the camp. If there were fit players available then it’s crazy not to put them on the bench.

With Riga, to be fair he did absolutely nothing and I think megson was making a tactical response to wenger’s 2 changes. I thought that was fair enough and the kid that came on was much more lively.

I also thought Basham looked good. Distribution was a bit nervy. He defended really well though. No idea where Hunt was but with Basham and steinsson surely his Bolton career is over?

Fair enough about Basham, hope to see more of him. I’ve thought that Riga isn’t “that” good for a while. At the Reebok recently, there has been a lot of Riga chants – but he hasn’t done anything since he came here. He looked lively for 10 minutes against Northampton Town. But if he was especially crap today then fair enough.
So how did we play Chris? We had 23% of the possession…
I heard the first half was *ahem* forgettable.
Is anyone starting to worry a little bit?

i also was at da match eboue really does look like hi’ll be off. stingy has to buy a playmaker even on loan would be fine

I don’t know what I was watching Bolton doing yesterday, but it sure as hell wasn’t playing football. They have no right to be in the top league if they have no intention of trying to score a goal let alone win the match. They were utterly useless and a very poor advert for the EPL, with more and more clubs playing like Boring Boring Bolton soon sponsorship for the EPL will dry up as no one is gonna want to watch these negative tactics. Gary Megson is waste of space and has no idea how to win a game and Davies is a talentless thug who has no right to be on the same pitch as the skillful players of Arsenal.

@jon.. I can see where you’re coming from re our negative tactics, a lot of our fans hate it too, but what choice do we have? Roll over and die like Stoke? It’s the champions league that has created this huge gulf between the top 4 and the rest, leaving teams like Bolton with little choice but to play this way. The big teams want everything their own way… The money of the champions and and then they expect teams with much fewer resources to just give them things on a plate.

I wouldn’t expect arsenal fans to understand the value of a player like davies, because clearly he’d never get in your team, but he’s not a thug, he just plays a man’s game like a man… Just like Tony Adams, patrick Vieira and Ian Wright did. Frankly if a few of your current team had the balls and fight they did then it wouldn’t have taken you 84 minutes to break us down.

@Ben

The first half was awful. Early in the second we had a bit of a go and it looked like we might when nick a winner but then Wenter turned the screw with his attacking subs and from that point they bombarded us.

All in all though it was a pretty brave show in comparison to how we gave in at Liverpool on boxing day.

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