“Abject, feeble, gutless, wretched…” No that’s not Gary Megson’s latest views on Bolton fans but the News of the World’s judgment on Spurs.

The Guardian put the blame squarely at the door of Harry Redknapp and berates the Spurs boss for trying to blame Juande Ramos… at least he isn’t balming the fans is all I can say.

More interestingly from a Bolton perspective, The Guardian quotes Kevin Davies as saying that the squad were surprised by Kevin Nolan’s departure for Newcastle, but their chalkboard feature shows that Davies did more than enough to cover for his former captain’s absence. His work rate put Roman Pavlyuchenko in the shade, apparently…

by Guardian Chalkboards

The Daily Mail also says Nolan wasn’t missed and reckons Mark Davies looks like a more than adequate replacement. Or as the Mirror put it: “Kevin Nolan quickly went from ‘Mr Bolton’ to ‘Mr Who?’ for the Reebok faithful.”

The Telegraph concentrates on Gary Megson’s recent problems rather than Redknapp’s and suggests that victory was the Bolton fans’ reward for having “stuck by their manager this time”. It goes on to rave about the performances of both Davieses too:

The Davies boys provided Bolton with the sensual difference between the two teams. One a bludgeoning front man, masterful in the air, resilient to the last; the other youthful, nimble, imaginative, infectious.

The Times also leads on Bolton rather than Redknapp’s woes, but only because their reporter saw fit to use Kevin Davies’ brace as an excuse to have a dig about his style of play:

Having left his calling card on the shins of many of the country’s top defenders, Kevin Davies is not the most popular player in the Premier League, but his enormous value to Bolton Wanderers was underlined yesterday when he scored twice to kill off Tottenham’s challenge.

The Times goes on to say that Gary Megson apologised to Bolton fans for calling them “pathetic” after the game, although it doesn’t actually have the quotes of him saying it.

The Express can’t seem to decide whether it agrees with what Megson said last week or not. It kicks off its match report by saying: “Sections of the Bolton crowd were not the only pathetic and stupid things at the Reebok yesterday.” Before continuing:

Wanderers boss Gary Megson has been to PR in the past week what oil company Total has to British workers by using the two words to brand some of his own fans then letting captain Kevin Nolan go to Newcastle.

Have your say in the comment box below..

Watch video highlights of Bolton 3-2 Spurs here.

Read the fans’ view on the game here.

Image via Wikipedia

What the web is predicting will happen between Bolton and Spurs this afternoon

1. Harry Redknapp thinks his players aren’t strong enough… so a game against a team that hasn’t won since December 20th may be just what they need.

2. They’ll have to do it without Jermain Defoe though, who will be out for the rest of the season (possibly).

3. Bwfc.co.uk, of course, prefers to focus on Tottenham’s poor record at the Reebok Stadium.

4. Apparently Spurs also have problems staying focused for 90 minutes, although you could say the same about Bolton given events at Ewood Park on Wednesday night.

5. Jlloyd Samuel says the players have been preparing for the game by speaking French to new signing Sebastien Puygrenier:

“A few of the lads reckon they can speak French too. I can tell you there’s quite a lot of French gets spoke in the dressing room – but not in a good way.”

Shame about the standard of English.

6.  Some Spurs fans think that Reebok has a c at the end of it. I assume this is some kind of joke at our expense, either that or their mum bought them some really shoddy knock-off trainers when they were younger. Like the Horwich Wanderers jibe of a few weeks ago, I just don’t get it.

What do you think will happen? Share your predictions in the comments below…

I’ve been saying for a while that Gary Megson’s job at Bolton Wanderers will only seriously come under threat when the national media jump on the bandwagon and start questioning his position.

In recent weeks there’s been far too much to write about at Newcastle, Manchester City and Tottenham for them to worry about little old Bolton, but it appears the ‘Gary Megson you’re a wanker’ chant at White Hart Lane on Sunday may have started the ball rolling.

Amid the Harry Redknapp hysteria, the abuse thrown at Megson stood out like a sore thumb and seemed to catch the eye of the papers, many of whom included reference to it in their match reports. And I notice that Sky Sports is now referring to Megson as ‘under pressure’.

When this starts to happen it’s customary for the club to try and calm the waters with some kind of statement. We’ve all seen it before: the dreaded chairman’s vote of confidence.

Given that Megson claimed after the game that the players had been just as hurt by the chant as he was, someone obviously decided that it would be a good idea to get a player to come out and publicly support him. Not necessarily a bad idea, but whoever decided that player should be Kevin Nolan wants their head checking.

Anyone who knows anything about Bolton Wanderers fans will know that Nolan is our Marmite: you either love him or hate him. Few players divide opinion more than Nolan, with some seeing him as a hero for his past exploits at Old Trafford etc and others seeing him as a fat, lazy big head.

Gary Megson and his favourite player. Picture courtesy of scottfeldstein, some rights reserved.

Getting Gary Cahill, Kevin Davies or Matthew Taylor – all widely respected by the fans – to defend Megson may have had some effect, but sending out Nolan (captain or not) was only ever going to make the situation worse, not least because the conclusion most people will jump to is that the players are not on Megson’s side at all and that Nolan – who many believe has the most to lose (i.e. his place in the side) should Megson get the chop – was the only person they could find willing to do it.

Don’t believe me? Check out some of the discussions on The Bolton News’ Wanderers forum. Here are some of the highlights:

- Is Nolan sleeping with Megson?

- Nolan shut up!

- Nolan and Megson joined at the hip.

- Nolan has lept to Megson’s defence… I wish he would leap somewhere.

And there’s plenty of other ‘Megson out’ threads on there too. The momentum is building and anything less than four points from the next two games is likely to see Megson come under almighty pressure from both the fans and media.

Here’s what the various Wanderers message boards made of the 2-0 defeat at White Hart Lane:

- The unveiling of Harry Redknapp as their new manager was brilliantly stage managed by Spurs so that they got maximum benefit for this game.

- The defeat was down to the officials who gifted Spurs two goals. It’s not the first time we’ve been stitched up by referees this season either.

OR…

- If Gary Megson can’t get his full strength side playing well then we have no hope.

- Megson has to go. After a year and £27 million, eight points from nine games is not good enough… the time for saying ‘let’s get behind him’ has gone. It’s almost got to the point where negative results don’t seem that bad if they hasten the departure of Megson.

- The club is lacking leadership from top to bottom, including on the pitch. Kevin Nolan should not be captain.

- The ‘Gary Megson you’re a wanker’ chants heard at the end will only get worse if we don’t beat Everton on Wednesday. Let’s hope Phil Gartside was joining in with the chant.

- Mind you, Gartside’s not too popular either, which is why there’ll be a protest against both him and Megson before the Everton game on Wednesday night.

- Jlloyd Samuel was our man of the match.

Will Portsmouth fans react in the same way as Nottingham Forest and Blackburn fans did now that Big Sam Allardyce is being tipped as favourite to replace Harry Redknapp, following his deaprture for Spurs?

A few weeks ago Vital Bolton Wanderers wrote about how Forest fans were up in arms about rumours that Sam Allardyce might be their next manager.

Blackburn fans reacted in a similar way when Big Sam was linked with their club before Paul Ince eventually got the job over the summer.

I’ve already seen a couple of negative comments on Pompey fan sites and message boards, like this one and this one.

I just don’t get it. OK, so he has a reputation for playing long ball (this is an over simplification, as I’ve written before) and the Panorama documentary a couple of years back didn’t do his reputation any good, but no-one could look at the situation Newcastle are in now and say that they did the right thing when they sacked Allardyce.

More importantly, no Forest (yes that’s the same Forest who are currently anchored to the bottom of the Championship!), Blackburn or Portsmouth fan (all clubs similar to Bolton in many ways) could say that what he did with the Wanderers was not extraordinary.

In fact it’s only now, as we watch Gary Megson trying to do a bad impression of Allardyce, that we’re realising just how lucky we were to have him.

So, in defence of the Allardyce reputation, welcome to the Manny Road Hall of Fame, Sam.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iet3xoNGoMA]

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