Your guide to all the pre-match predictions and Mystic Meggery ahead of Chelsea v Bolton Wanderers

Reasons to be cheerful…
1. Only Arsenal have a better record at Stamford Bridge than Bolton in recent years… in fact we have only lost once in our last five visits to Chelsea.

2. Kevin Davies isn’t too disappointed that his rumoured January move to Chelsea never materialised. In fact, he thought it was as funny as everyone else did.

3. Bolton are able to name the same team that thrashed Middlesbrough last week, whilst Chelsea have one or two defensive selection headaches.

4. Due to our shocking performances in cup competitions, Chelsea have played 15 games more than Bolton so far this season.

Reasons to be fearful…
5. Chelsea have rather a lot to play for… Bolton, on the other hand – having now proven that we’re not quite as bad as all the other really bad teams in the Premier League this season – do not.

6. Michael Essien did a pretty good job of silencing Steven Gerrard the other night, so he shouldn’t have too much bother with Gavin McCann.

7. By Gary Megson’s own admission, we’re absolutely useless against the big four these days.

8. And the Bolton manager appears to have half a mind on a spot of West End shopping while he’s in London.

9. We have only kept one clean sheet in our last 19 Premier League games.

10. As usual, Megson has made a point of letting his opposite number know just how fantastic he thinks he is… although the ginger one has at least stuck the boot in by tipping Manchester United for the title (not that this will exactly endear him to Wanderers fans).

11. Chelsea have lost just once since Guus Hiddink replaced Phil Scolari… oh, and they had quite a good win in Europe mid-week.

12. Chelsea seem to think we won’t leave without putting up a fight (see Petr Cech below for more Bolton Wanderers cliches). Clearly they didn’t see our performances at Fulham, Spurs and Stoke earlier this season.

Reasons to be bored…
13. Here’s the obligatory pre-match “Bolton are a really tough side because they play direct football” bullshit, this week starring Petr Cech.

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

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How the papers reported Bolton’s 3-0 defeat to Liverpool on Boxing Day

There seems to be no doubt who most of the papers would like to win the Premier League this season.

Robbie Keane’s sudden return to form may have ruined their juciest January transfer window story, but there was a definite air of excitement after Liverpool battered Bolton and gave journos hope that they might actually have something a little different to write about come mid-May.

‘It is not only the fans who are starting to believe that this could be the season when Liverpool end their 19-year wait for the title,’ said The Times.

It was all about Keane in The Sun, even if they did blame him for Rafa Benitez’s recent illness.

Even Gary Megson was keen to join the Liverpool love-in in the Express.

The Mirror offered Bolton sympathy, describing them as ‘poor’ (that’s poor as in ‘oh poor you’ rather than poor as in ’shit’… although they did point out that our defending of set pieces was indeed… shit).

The Guardian were harsher, suggesting that Megson had learned nothing from his failed attempt to nullify Steven Gerrard at the Reebok a month ago.

The Telegraph, on the other hand, put our capitualtion down to the ‘frailties of left-back Jlloyd Samuel’.

The Daily Mail also salivated over both Keane and Liverpool and suggested any chance Bolton may have had disappeared when Kevin Nolan missed a first-half sitter.

The Independent, though, demonstrated just how tame Bolton’s threat was by reporting that after that Nolan effort it took another 82 minutes for us to muster another.

Share your views on the game in the comments below.

You can read the fans’ views on the game here.

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Your guide to all the pointless big match previews and predictions

1. Gary Megson has lost every games he’s ever managed against Liverpool, conceding 20 goals in six games and scoring just one (in fact, this stat fest contains a gold mine of depressing Liverpool-based stats for Wanderers fans).

2. Bolton have lost their last four games to Liverpool and conceded 12 goals in the process.

3. For a less depressing statistical outlook, visit bwfc.co.uk, who provided ths week’s most pointless stat: today’s referee Alan Wiley has produced 49 yellow cards and two red cards in 17 games this season (if that doesn’t whet your appetitie for a trip to Anfield I don’t know what will).

4. Oh wait a minute, what about this one… the game will kick-off at 5pm Bulgarian time (no, really, someone actually wrote a preview to tell the world that).

5. Looks like Sammy Lee won’t be in charge of Liverpool today as Rafa Benitez looks to return to the touchline following kidney stones.

6. Matthew Taylor and Kevin Nolan both want maximum points for Christmas (presumably they want that all year round, though, right?).

7. Fernando Torres probably won’t be fit to play OR… he could be fit to play… OR he will be on the bench (take your pick).

8. Liverpool are top of the league at Christmas for the first time since 1996, a year when they went on to win… absolutely nothing. And Bolton went on… to get relegated (I can do useless and irrelevant historical information too).

9. Bolton’s recent form under Megson is ‘quietly impressive’ (surely it’s only quiet if you’re not listening?).

10. One thing that’s never quiet is Megson’s ego-stroking of the opposition before every game, this week featuring Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher.

11. Liverpool fans are hoping we won’t ‘park the bus in front of the goal’.

12. But they still expect to win 2-1.

Think the pundits talk a load of rubbish? You can leave your own preview or prediction in the comment box below.

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The Bolton boss appears to be taking it a little too far…

Fair play to Gary Megson for somehow managing to keep a lid on his anger on the two occasions that Rob Styles has worked his magic on us this season (this occurred to me after watching Neil Warnock’s latest undignified rant over the weekend).

But I fear Megson may be taking the FA’s much talked about Respect campaign a little too literally.

I wrote prior to the Liverpool game that I hoped he would be less complimentary about Liverpool during his team talk with the players than he was in the press, where he lavished praise on Rafa Benitez’s side.

Was Megson showing them too much respect? Judging by our first-half performance, he may well have been.

There’s also a more serious tactical point to be made here. Clearly Megson showed too much respect to Steven Gerrard too, who he man-marked with Fabrice Muamba. It didn’t work: Liverpool ran amok, Muamba was hauled off at half-time and Megson was again forced to admit that his original game plan had totally failed.

I noticed on the Liverpool website that they gave Xabi Alonso the man of the match, and as this match report from The Independent points out, the biggest flaw in Megson’s game plan was that in giving Gerrard so much respect, he showed an ignorance of the amount of influence both Alonso and Javier Mascherano have on making Liverpool tick.

The implication is that while the uneducated layman (that’s you and me) might think Liverpool’s success begins and end with Gerrard, a highly-paid Premier League manager should have the ability to see the bigger picture.

And that, in a nutshell, is why the only person who didn’t get any respect at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday was Megson himself.

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How to get in touch with the Bolton Wanderers manager…

I wrote recently about the number of Bolton Wanderers fans who find this blog because they are searching Google for Gary Megson’s email address.

As before, I still don’t have his email address. But I do have the next best thing.

In my analysis of anti-Megson groups on Facebook last week I mentioned that I’d stumbled across the man himself and was awaiting acceptance of my friendship request.

To his credit he has now accepted and it appears that he’s happy to make friends with fans, as well as the likes of Steven Gerrard, Nicolas Anelka and Alex Ferguson.

So, if you really want to contact Gary Megson and share with him your ideas for how he could make Bolton Wanderers better, why not add him as a friend on Facebook and send him a message that way?

Gary Megson on Facebook

With results looking up in recent weeks some have suggested that Megson needs to go on a charm offensive in the media if he is ever to win fans over.

The problem is that – whether he means to or not – he has a habit of saying things to the press that don’t make a lot of sense. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by fans: check out this ‘Megsonisms’ discussion.

Communicating with fans on this more personal level rather than via the sycophantic Bolton News may well help him.

My only criticism is that the club haven’t publicised it more. Why not plaster it all over the official website? It has to be more interesting than most of the stuff they put on there.

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The Bolton Wanderers match report you won’t read in the papers…

- Bolton’s attitude to cup ties is a disgrace. Roll on January for another humiliation in the FA Cup! Mind you, we get exactly what we deserve, given that only 7,136 fans bothered to turn up to watch.

- Gary Cahill should be fined a fortnight’s wages for getting sent off.

- Our only tactic is hit and hope. Stoke fell for it because their defence is rubbish but few other teams will.

- What happened to us taking the Cups seriously this season, Mr Megson?

- Match updates on the official BWFC website stopped after Northampton went 2-0 up within 28 minutes, which shows what they thought about the result/performance!

- The players are more worried about buying a new 86 inch Plasma telly from the Trafford Centre than wearing the white shirt.

- Danny Shittu looked like the Championship defender he is. In fact, he and Megson were more like Laurel and Hardy. Come back Abdoulaye Meite and Radhi Jaidi all is forgiven!

- The only explanation for Heidar Helguson’s inclusion in the team is that Megson was putting him in the shop window. He and Kevin Davies couldn’t score in a brothel.

- Joey O’Brien and Gavin McCann are Bolton’s version of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, only nowhere near as good.

- Still, at least ITV put us out of our misery by not bothering to show the highlights.

- Special mention to Ding Dong Doo, whose match report summed up the general lack of confidence in Gary Megson, even if he did write it 12 hours before the game finished.

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