Would you buy a second hand car off these boys?

Aspirations have changed at Bolton since the dark days of Gary Megson. The arrival of Owen Coyle followed by our impressive start to the season had the more optimistic of us counting air miles and dusting off our Bulgarian phrase-books. Even when European qualification had passed us by – embarrassingly so in the cup – a top half finish was still on the cards right up to the end of the season.

Never mind. Coyle’s inherited Megson’s bunch of cloggers. Once he’s had the summer to make serious changes, we’ll be back to chasing Europe again. Surely relegation battles are a thing of the past? Aren’t they?

Maybe not. Our form after Christmas was relegation-standard, and the end of the season – five defeats on the bounce – was abysmal. It wouldn’t be the first time poor form at the end of one season has carried over to the next. Add to that our tough start to the season and it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see us rock-bottom after the first seven games. We’ll have easier runs to follow, but everything looks that bit tougher if you’re sat at the bottom and confidence may have taken a bit of a battering.

So how relevant is end-of-season form to performance in next campaign? Let’s hope the answer is ‘not very’. Only two previous premier league teams have ever lost their last five matches: Sunderland in 2003 and Derby in 2008. Both teams finished bottom and were relegated. Sunderland set a record low points tally of nineteen. Derby set a new one with eleven. We are therefore proud holders of another record – the only premier league side to have lost their last five games without being relegated.

So are we realistic relegation candidates, and if so who else is? Maybe recent history can give us some pointers.

Teams relegated from the premier league over the last ten years generally fit into one or more of the following categories:

1. Newly promoted

The omens aren't good, Neil

The most obvious category. Thirteen of the last thirty relegated sides were newly promoted, and not since the class of 2001 – Bolton, Blackburn, and Fulham, who are all still there – have all three promoted sides stayed up. Looking on the bright side, it’s 1998 since all three promoted teams were relegated (Bolton, Barnsley, and Crystal Palace), so maybe at least one will survive?

Candidates: QPR, Norwich, Swansea

2. Narrowly avoided relegation
Five of the last ten years’ relegated sides – including each of the last two years – finished in 17th place the previous year, so history suggests there’s a 50:50 chance Wolves will be in the mix next season.
For the record those relegated sides were Derby, Sunderland, West Brom, Hull and West Ham, and those that have survived were Fulham, Wigan, Portsmouth, Everton, and Bolton.

Although no team finishing 16th has been relegated the next year, the closeness of this year’s relegation scrap suggests that the other last day survivors, Wigan and Blackburn, could also be in the mix.
Candidates: Wolves.
Possible: Wigan, Blackburn

3. Second season
Five of the 30 slots have gone to teams ‘enjoying’ their second season in the top flight. In the case of West Brom and Hull, they had also narrowly avoided relegation the previous season, but the other three – Ipswich, Reading, and Birmingham – had finished in the top half.

Newcastle and West Brom are the two clubs facing their second season. West Brom have steadied the ship under Roy Hodgson and will be targeting mid-table at least. Of the two, Newcastle would be the more likely candidates for me, but only because of indications of internal problems and my belief that Pardew is a poor manager, although they should have the finances to build a decent side after the sale of Andy Carroll.

Candidates: Newcastle and West Brom.

4. Finished the previous season badly
Accounts for six of the thirty relegation slots in the last ten years. Two of these were teams that had also narrowly avoided relegation, but the other four all finished comfortably mid-table, albeit in poor form, reminiscent of this year’s Bolton.

Leicester finished the 2000/01 season with nine defeats in their last ten and dropping from 4th to 13th in the process. They carried this form into the new season, getting thumped by newly promoted Bolton in their first game of the new campaign, losing seven of their first ten games, and being rooted to the foot of the table for most of the season.

Southampton finished 12th in 2004 but with only two points from their last five games. Again, this carried over to the new campaign, with them winning only one of their first twelve and ultimately finishing bottom.

Charlton finished the 2005/06 season in 12th place despite four defeats in their last five then started the next season with seven defeats and only one win in their first ten games, ultimately finishing 19th.

Birmingham’s impressive 2009/10 season saw them defy expectations and claim a top ten place, but also saw them win only one of their last ten games. Whilst the following year started with a four-game unbeaten run, they only managed one win in the first eight, and ultimately a poor end to a topsy-turvy season saw them relegated on the last day.

In four of the last ten seasons, one of the relegated teams have had the worst form of any surviving team in the last five games of the previous campaign. Obviously this also means that the other six teams that finished bottom of the form guide survived, including Everton in 2004 and Man City in 2007 who went on to enjoy top half finishes the following year.

Remember, though, that losing your last five games is unprecedented for any surviving club, so Bolton are in uncharted territory. We managed less than a point a game since Christmas (only Blackpool and West Ham had worse records) and with our diabolical away record, a tricky start at newly promoted QPR (reminiscent of Leicester in 2002) closely followed by games against five of last season’s top six and things could look bleak by mid-October.

Last season’s only other premier league ‘survivor’ with less than a point per game in their last five was Arsenal, who are clearly in no danger of relegation.

Candidates: Bolton

5. Other factors
This category covers other potential ‘warning signs’: financial troubles, loss of a long-term manager, change of ownership, daft managerial sackings and disastrous appointments.

Many of the teams already mentioned also fit into this category. Leicester had recently lost Martin O’Neill. Charlton had lost Curbishley and followed up with three managers the following year. Southampton lost Strachan and appointed Sturrock (briefly) then Wigley (laughably), and so on.

Only six of our thirty relegated teams do not fit into at least one of the categories above. Two of these – Leeds in 2004 and Portsmouth in 2010 – were victims of financial meltdown, as the consequences of overspending took them from European qualification to relegation in short time.

Another – Newcastle – had recently changed ownership, and were going through their Laurel and Hardy phase as new owner Mike Ashley was demonstrating why he should never have been allowed anywhere near a professional football club. There were already murmurings of discontent before Keegan walked out at the start of their relegation season.

Barring sudden loss of interest from the Arabs / Russians / Americans, there are a couple of potential candidates from this category.

Blackburn’s recent change of ownership coupled with the appointment of an inexperienced manager probably put them at the top of the list.

Bet you daren't appoint ... him!

Mike Ashley still should be allowed nowhere near a football club, and Newcastle’s sacking of Hughton and appointment of Pardew seems a bit of an odd one. Again there are murmurings from within the club, and the sale of your captain and main goal threat to a championship club doesn’t bode well, so let’s add them too.

Aston Villa’s appointment of McLeish is the most head-scratchingly daft for a while, but they have too much money and (currently) too good a squad to be genuine candidates.

Candidates: Blackburn, Newcastle.

That leaves only three clubs out of the last thirty relegated that were relegated without any of the ‘warning signs’ listed above, which suggests that if you’re an established premier league club not mentioned thus far, you’re probably safe..

Summary: put your money on …
It’s difficult to look beyond the three promoted sides, and likely that at least a couple will be in the mix. Other prime candidates for me would be; Blackburn due to their potential for off-field turmoil with the new owners and because they narrowly avoided relegation this year, Newcastle due to Mike Ashley, Alan Pardew, and second season syndrome, Wolves simply because the worst placed survivor tends to have an even chance of going down, and finally Bolton due to our poor form at the end of last season and our difficult schedule at the start of this one, but mainly so I don’t jinx us by saying we’ll be safe.

To narrow it down further, I’d expect Wolves to build on their survival in the last two seasons and Bolton to have too much pedigree, too solid a set-up and too good a manager to be in the mix after Christmas.

So perm any three from Norwich, QPR, Swansea, Newcastle, and Blackburn.

There you go – the three relegated teams will definitely come out of that bunch. Probably.

- Wakey

The first half could be described in three words.  Nothing much happened.  The home side started better and used the channels well, but the crosses into the penalty area were dealt with easily and as the interval beckoned, Blackburn were in the ascendancy, without creating much in the way of clear chances.

Party time for Sam

The second period started at a higher tempo and tempers started to fray.  Ten minutes in, and the Whites were down to ten men when Mark Davies collected a second yellow card after leading with his elbow on Phil Jones.

Owen Coyle’s side wobbled, and as they often do, took time to adjust to a setback. The visitors took control and the toothless, many fingered hordes who’d travelled down the A666 were already celebrating an anticipated victory.

Just as the cause was looking lost, salvation came from an unlikely source.  With the exit of Davies, Lee Chung-Yong had been replaced with Fabrice Muamba and Johan Elmander given the right flank to work.  The Swede drew a foul and from a Sam Ricketts free kick Ryan Nelson headed clear. The ball fell to Muamba who rounded the advancing New Zealander.

At this point, guided by experience, the pigeons on top of the North stand were preparing to find a different resting spot, but the midfielder’s low drive was expertly placed, just inside the near post.  Muamba reverted by type by falling over during in the goal celebration and the guests from East Lancashire went quiet.

Moments later it seemed the lead had been doubled, but referee Mark Clattenburg disallowed Martin Petrov’s effort because he felt like it.

From then on, Blackburn threw everything at Bolton, including the kitchen sink, fixtures and fittings, and a tatty sofa that they’d brought from Ewood Park for Sam Allardyce to sit on.

The home defence stood firm, especially Paul Robinson, who threw himself in front of everything that moved.  It was a pity then, just as the storm seemed to have been weathered, that the visitors were level, three minutes from the end, when Mame Biram Diouf picked up Jason Roberts’s first-time pass, advanced down the left side of the penalty area and chipped the ball over Jussi Jaaskelainen, aided by a slight deflection off Gary Cahill.  Sam was up off his sofa and dancing around like a two year old.

Oops

The celebration didn’t last long.  About forty-five seconds.  From the restart, Muamba laid the ball back to Sam Rickett’s who launched a perfectly angled long ball into enemy territory.  For once, Kevin Davies won the aerial battle and his head-on found Stuart Holden.  The man from Dallas, so often Bolton’s midfield destroyer, finished like a seasoned striker, taking the ball on his chest and then volleying home.  Holden’s mock celebratory faint is an in joke amongst the players, but it summed up the feelings of the Reebok faithful.  Sam looked as if someone had nicked his rusk.

Allardyce was miffed in defeat.  ‘To do what we did after we scored is absolutely diabolical from my point of view,’ he complained.

Big Sam hasn’t yet received due credit for what he achieved at the Reebok and in the eyes of some fans, the manner of his leaving and behaviour afterward have tainted the memory. But that discussion is for another time.  Today, there are just three more words.

Up yours fatty.

- Richard McCormick

It’s a pleasing way to start an article on Bolton Wanderers isn’t it?  At some point in the future the words may be etched on the Ginger One’s tombstone.

It wasn’t the first time that chant had been aimed at Megson, but the significance, in the context of today’s game, is that it signalled yet another failure to beat Blackburn Rovers, this time after leading 2-0  in, January 2009 at Ewood Park.

It’s been a familiar story over the past few years.  Whilst overall the head to head is close (Wanderers 56 wins, Rovers 53) recent encounters have very much favoured the team from the other end of the Devil’s Highway.  At the Reebok, Bolton haven’t beaten Blackburn since before both clubs returned to the Premier League a decade ago.

In the main, those games have been dire to watch, with a 0-0 score line featuring more than it should.  That Sky continues to televise the fixture shows they aren’t taking much notice.

There’s also another jinx that needs laying to rest.   Since Sam Allardyce took his ‘break’ from football in 2007, only to pitch up at Newcastle a fortnight later, he hasn’t been defeated when his sides have faced Bolton.  Last season Allardyce didn’t even need to be at the game.  The big man watched his side score an easy 2-0 win from a hospital bed, after having a heart fitted.

Sam and Jussi have a chat. Note the position of the ball

Things descended into grim comedy that day, with Sam Ricketts executing a routine headed back pass to his own goalkeeper, only to find a large space where he’d expected Jussi Jaakelainen to be.  Game over.

By that stage Megson was hanging from a cliff with thousands of people queuing up to stamp on his fingers.  Metaphorically speaking that is, much to the regret of the home support.

The mood is much lighter now and today’s match will be a test of how far Owen Coyle has progressed with his quest to play a more enterprising brand of football.  The visitors will no doubt defend deep, be well organised and attempt to stifle the game in the final third.

There is nothing wrong with that approach.  Whilst a pass and move game might be pleasing to the eye, it’s results that count, as Alan Pardew will tell you when he’s sacked next Easter.

Coyle’s side have some making up to do.  Last time out there was a no-show at Manchester City, preceded by a barely deserved draw against a Blackpool side still inspired by the wurzel on smack that is Ian Holloway.

Both games were marked by the absence of Stuart Holden, the Whites best player this season, who is expected to resume his partnership with Fabrice Muamba.  How they perform will be pivotal.

The away team will be happy with a point, but the Wanderers need three, to restore the momentum, lift them back into the top six, and to nail a double bogey that’s lasted for too long.

- Richard McCormick

Will the last person to leave the Reebok Stadium please turn out the lights

Manny Road is officially going dark…

After a month of very little activity here on Manny Road, I’ve finally decided to put the blog on hold for a while.

I’ve been mulling this over for some time. Partly it’s motivated by factors in my own life: lack of time, an array of other projects to be getting on with, and the realisation that I’ve learnt pretty much everything I can from the Manny Road project – not least that you can’t make money from blogging; not about Bolton Wanderers anyway.

I was hoping that I’d be pushed over the edge by a revolution at the Reebok; by the removal of Gary Megson as manager. Yet despite a dismal run of results and a heartless display against Blackburn yesterday, it looks like the natural juncture for Manny Road to cease is still some way off – Megson is safe for some time yet, I fear.

In the end, it wasn’t the revolution that did for me, but rather, the lack of one. I won’t re-hash my objections to Megson today – I’ve already done so at length here, here, here and here – except to say that my obections are more about the way he conducts himself with supporters than the standard of football or the results. But the events of this weekend have led me to a difficult decision: I will not be spending any more money on Bolton Wanderers until Megson has been removed from office. Nor will I be writing another word about them either.

Put simply, Manny Road and other attempts by fans to vocalise discontent have failed. Megson is still there, and the cancer that he has brought to the club is now terminal. What struck me most about yesterday’s game, aside from the awful performance, was the atmosphere amongst supporters. It wasn’t the booing and the jeering that were shocking, but the lack of it. When it first got ugly against Megson at Spurs last season there was real emotion in the vitriol. Yesterday there was barely any emotion left; it was like watching the final desperate breaths of a soon-to-be corpse. Phil Gartside is about to learn that what comes after vitriol is apathy – and that’s much more dangerous.

What I saw yesterday was people (those that were there) looking increasingly resigned to the misery in front of them. People hating you might not feel great, but at least it shows they care. The chasm that now disconnects club and supporters, first opened up by the appointment of Megson, seems to get wider by the day. The club doesn’t listen to fans, it takes them for granted – and the only way to force change now is to turn our backs.

It runs deeper than just on-field performances. When I tried to buy a ticket for the game on Saturday afternoon the ticket office was closed. That’s right, the day before a big Lancashire derby, the club wouldn’t sell me a ticket. Is it any wonder the ground is half empty? Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, when most people are at work, the ticket office is open. On a Saturday afternoon, when Middlebrook is packed with shoppers wondering how they’re going to entertain themselves the next day, the ticket office is closed. That’s great business sense.

Eventually we handed over £56 for two tickets (on Sunday, when the ticket office was open, despite the sign outside saying it wouldn’t be). Inside the ground I then paid a further £1.70 for bottle of Coke, only to be told that I wasn’t allowed to have the bottle top because I ‘might hurt someone with it’. What other business, after taking nearly £60 of your money, proceeds to politely inform you that you look like the kind of person likely to commit GBH? Service with a smile! Except, in the words of Jarvis Cocker: ‘I don’t see anyone else smiling in here.’

The only thing likely to insight violence from me yesterday was Gary Megson’s continued tenure as our manager, and I’d need more than a plastic bottle top to committ that crime, believe me.

Except that violence solves nothing, so I’m joining the ranks of the disillusioned, apathetic Wanderers fans instead.

See you on the other side…

Big Sam rears his ugly head again

The Daily Star proves Manny Road’s worst fears about Gary Megson and Sam Allardyce

I wrote yesterday that the football Bolton have played under Gary Megson has been so dull that it appears to have put many journalists in to some kind of trance, in which they believe Sam Allardyce is still the Wanderers manager.

And just to prove that only some of what appears on Manny Road is over-reacting to simple mistakes, on the very same day the Daily Star published an article about new signing Lee Chung-Yong in which Big Sam again reared his ugly (quite literally) head (hat tip to Alex for pointing this out in the comments of yesterday’s post).

Clearly they didn’t think this was going to be a huge traffic driver to the site. The (unnamed) journalist who penned it didn’t even bother with a third paragraph, but he/she might at least have dug out a photo of Mr Chung-Yong instead of sticking in a completely irrelevant picture of the BLACKBURN ROVERS manager Sam Allardyce.

On a page on which the actual story takes up about 2 per cent of what’s being displayed (see image above for the full array of crap the Daily Star has to offer once you’ve finished this reading this in-depth piece), they still managed to screw it up.

Spotted a Bolton Wanderers cock-up in the press? Let us know in the comments below…

Image from 101 Great Goals

I lost count of the number of times the press made reference to Sam Allardyce being manager of Bolton Wandererers last season.

After Big Sam returned to management in the north-west with Blackburn midway through last season, a succession of newspaper articles and – if memory serves – over-excitable Sky Sports pundits, lazily got Bolton mixed up with their Lancashire rivals.

Perhaps the media are showing sympathy with Wanderers fans, many of whom would also like to forget that Gary Megson is actually our manager these days. Either way, a summer of – ahem – exciting activity from Megson at the Reebok doesn’t seem to have given some journalists the ability to write the words ‘Big Sam’ without accompanying them with either ‘Bolton’, ‘Wanderer’ or ‘Trotters’.

Just check out this story from The Sunday Mirror, spotted by the website 101 Great Goals, in which Miguel Veloso is joining Allardyce at Bolton one minute and Blackburn the next. Come on lads, it’s not that hard.

Your views, as ever, welcome below…

How the national press reported the Wanderers goalless draw at the JJB Stadium

The News of the World gives top billing to Jussi Jaaskelainen, suggesting Wigan would have won at a canter but for the Bolton keeper’s heroics. The Guardian described Jaaskelainen as “immense”. The Mail is similarly complimentary, although it does point out that he almost got punished for a howler early in the game.

In contrast to most other papers, the Times thought it was a boring game, even going as far as suggesting that the fans might have enjoyed it more if their teams were more deeply involved in the relegation battle. The Times was also the only paper to point out that the Bolton fans’ present to Gary Megson on his 50th birthday was abuse (anybody else hear this?).

The reporter from the Independent enjoyed the game rather more:

Despite the score, there were the odd outbreaks of excitement, too, particularly in the first half when Wigan were kept at bay only by the agility of Jussi Jaaskelainen. Hugo Rodallega hit a post and Bolton’s Gary Cahill had a shot deflected on to the bar, so it was not quite the arid wasteland implied by Gary Lineker on Match of the Day.

In seeming apparent ignorance of the rivalry between the two club’s sets of fans, the Telegraph rather patronisingly suggests Wigan and Bolton are like two peas from a pod (what because we’re both small northern towns?). The same report then rather bizarrely feels need to comment on the game between Barcelona and Real Madrid on the same day, which can only lead us to conclude that the reporter’s heart wasn’t really in his duties at the JJB.

Also struggling to take in the action on the pitch was the Express, who also lumped Blackburn in to the “aww aren’t those plucky northerners cute” analogy.

What did you think of the game? Have your say on Wigan Athletic 0-0 Bolton Wanderers in the comment box below…

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Reasons to be cheerful
1. Fulham have not won away from home this season and have only scored three goals on their travels. Basically they’re completely useless away from Craven Cottage.

2. Defeat against Blackburn also shows they’re tired and running out of steam, according to Roy Hodgson.

3. There should be a big crowd to cheer on the Whites, thanks to the club’s £10 ticket offer and Ladies Day.

4. Like pretty much every manager, Hodgson seems to think aerial prowess is our only threat.

5. In the nine days since we last played, Fulham have played twice.

6.The Stoke game aside, we’re on a good run with three wins from five.

7. Aaron Hughes is injured for the visitors. Someone called Toni Kallio will play instead.

Reasons to be fearful
8. Victory could see us climb as high as ninth, so expect nose bleeds all round.

9. By Gary Megson’s own admission, we were bloody awful against Stoke.

10. Fulham took us to pieces at Craven Cottage earlier this season.

Share your predictions for the game in the comment box below…

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The Bolton manager’s Facebook charm offensive

I wrote a few months back about Gary Megson trying to win over some fans by accepting them as friends on Facebook.

Since then, of course, his roller-coaster relationship with the supporters has had several more ups and downs, most notably when he called travelling fans at Blackburn “pathetic”.

Now it seems that he doesn’t want to be Facebok friends anymore.

I’m not quite sure when it happened but I noticed his absence from my list of friends yesterday. At first I thought maybe he’d been reading some of the things I’ve written about him, but after doing some searches it appears his profile has been deleted altogether.

And unlike Manny Road, he doesn’t seem to have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon either.

For those who added Megson as a friend, you can replace his friendship by becoming a ‘fan’ of him on Facebook, although personally I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

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Image via Wikipedia

Former Wanderers star allegedly falls foul of prank call

I was always slightly uneasy with the amount of respect El-Hadji Diouf seemed to get from Bolton Wanderers fans.

After all, despite his efforts on the field for the Whites, various incidents – including spitting and drink driving (both glorified in a popular terrace chant) – indicated he was a deeply unpleasant human being.

Having failed to convince anyone at Sunderland to the contrary during his brief stay there (he threatened to stab his team-mate Anton Ferdinand), Diouf’s career now seems to have hit another low point after he allegedly fell victim to a prank telephone call, a recording of which appeared on the internet on Friday.

It should be said that some of the things said by the pranksters somewhat undermine their attempt to take the moral high ground, but if it is Diouf they were speaking to then it will confirm many people’s negative view of the now Blackburn player.

Is it Diouf in the recording? Judge for yourselves below (for those who would prefer not to hear grown men talking about what they would do to each other’s mothers and one-year-old children, click away now)…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOUYZz7gdTQ[/youtube]

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