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

Image via Wikipedia

Your guide to all the Bolton v Newcastle previews and Mystic Meggery

Reasons to be cheerful…
1. Kevin Nolan will miss the game for his new club after he tried to maim Victor Anichebe last week. Joey Barton and Danny Guthrie will also be keeping their studs clean.

2. Newcastle fans may not be able to find the Reebok Stadium because of some typically piss poor transport planning. Unless, of course, Nolan has told them all his secrets.

3. Gary Megson wants to pick the same team that beat West Ham which, presuming they do what they did in the first ten minutes and not the remaining 80, should be a good thing.

4. As far as  I can tell, there’s no sign of Michael Owen doing much to earn his £110k a week this weekend. Some bloke called Andy Carroll might play though.

5. Without wishing to put too finer point on it, Newcastle are a mess. The following words give you a flavour of the problems: Keegan, Wise, Ashley, for sale, no takers, Joe Kinnear, heart bypass surgery. Oh, and did we mention that Kevin Nolan doesn’t score goals any more before we took 4.5 million of your English pounds for him?

Reasons to be fearful…
6. Gary Megson isn’t worried about setting Bolton a points total because “mathematics has no place in football.” Except of course when they’re deciding which team has scored more goals, and which place everyone should be in in the table… so nothing particularly important.

7. In fact Megson, in typically contradictory fashion, has also been telling the Manchester Evening News this week that 40 points is the magic number. Make your mind up!

Statements of the bleedin’ obvious
8. Here’s a whole load of really boring statistics which tell you absolutely nothing about what will happen in the game. I only bring this to your attention because people who write Wdrs instead of Wanderers really piss me off. It’s lazy and it’s inaccurate… or shld tht b inaccur8?

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How Alex Ferguson almost changed my mind about the Bolton manager

I’m keen for my view that Gary Megson should be sacked at the end of the season, even if we do stay up, to be proven wrong. Mainly because I want to see my team win and get behind them.

As well as asking my readers for reasons why I’m wrong, I’ve also been actively searching for excuses to change my mind. Here’s the nearest I came last week…

The Daily Mail reported that an incredible 923 managers have been and gone from clubs in the English league since Alex Ferguson took charge at Manchester United in 1986.

Just analysing the clubs in the Premier League, it’s certainly possible to see correlation between the number of managers and the level of success enjoyed during that period, i.e. that the fewer managers you’ve had, the more successful you’re likely to be.

Ferguson himself is the most obvious example. Elsewhere, only two managers have left Arsenal during Ferguson’s reign, and just four have departed Anfield.

In contrast, teams who it’s fair to say have underachieved over the last 20 years – Spurs, Newcastle, Man City – average 12 managers waving goodbye.

The anomalies in this theory, i.e. club’s who’ve enjoyed relative success in spite of a large turnover of managers – Chelsea (11), Fulham (12), Wigan (12) – have in common the presence of chairmen/owners who have been especially generous with the cheque book in recent years.

So where do Bolton sit in all this? Six managers have left Burnden/the Reebok in the last 23 years, which means only United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Middlesbrough have had fewer managers (West Ham and Aston Villa have had the same).

The conclusion would seem to be that calling in the hangman as quickly as Chelsea and Portsmouth did last week, and Blackburn did earlier in the season, is not necessarily in the best long-term interests of the club.

Having said that, if that logic had always been applied at Bolton, then Roy McFarland and Sammy Lee would both have lasted longer than they did. After all, what’s worse, not backing a manager for long enough or giving the wrong manager too much time?

What these figures actually suggest to me is not that we should blindly back Megson in the hope that loyalty will stand us in good stead, but that having made two bad appointments, Phil Gartside had better get the next one right.

What do you think? Have your say below…

*Several parts of this story were altered as the story evolved. In the interests of transparency, all changes have been recorded for posterity, hence crossings out, brackets and UPDATES (sorry if this is confusing)*

**UPDATE 5 (19.10.2008): (not) added to headline. Original headline read ‘Bolton Wanderers hit by Icelandic banking collapse’. See new post here for explanation.**

Much has been made in the press of West Ham’s connections to the Icelandic banking collapse, but it appears Bolton could lose money in the crisis too.

The Guardian today (October 14) reported that several Premier League clubs are facing financial headaches following the virtual nationalisation of high street banks in the UK. But Bolton’s connections to Iceland apparently leave them in an particularly vulnerable position. The paper’s Digger column said:

Bolton Wanderers have most to fear. Singer & Friedlander, the operation belonging to the collapsed Icelandic bank Kaupthing, is in administration. Bolton would now appear to be debtors to a huge list of creditors who are clamouring for their funds.

Of course, being a national newspaper, The Guardian gives Bolton’s woes only one paragraph in an article that is more concerned with the potential problems at Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal.

So naturally, after reading this, I turned to The Bolton News website and bwfc.co.uk for a more in-depth analysis.

What did I find? A story about fans being encouraged to bring flags to the Blackburn game on Saturday leading the news on both sites and no mention of the club’s connections to Iceland in sight.

An admirable initiative no doubt, but was this really the most important thing that happened on Planet Bolton Wanderers today? I dare say the club’s accountant doesn’t think so.

:UPDATE: Yesterday The Bolton News reported that the British Government has loaned an Icelandic bank £100m, but it made no mention of Bolton Wanderers’ links to country’s banking crisis.

:UPDATE 2: Found this discussion on The Wanderer in which fans with more financial know-how than myself call in to question the validity of The Guardian story. It would be nice if the club could come out with similar statements of reassurance.

:UPDATE 3: The plot thickens. I’m told The Bolton News carried the story on their back page this morning, however the website version was there one minute and gone the next. Details on this discussion here.

:UPDATE 4: Apparently the ‘back page’ mentioned in update 3 was ‘a metaphorical’ one. Can anyone confirm what was on the back page of The Bolton News this morning (they don’t sell it here in London)?

Now you see it… Google brings up The Bolton News as result number one in a search for ‘Bolton Wanderers credit crunch’…

Google results for 'Bolton Wanderers credit crunch'

Now you don’t… but the link leads to an empty page and the story appears to have been removed almost as soon as it went up…

Disappearing act on The Bolton News

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about a bug in the system of the BWFC latest news feed that displays on the top right-hand side of this blog. It kept crashing and I couldn’t figure out why.

Well, after some trial and error, it appears the bug was caused by the news feed from the Manchester Evening News. Since I removed the MEN feed it’s worked perfectly.

More proof that Mancunians and Boltonians don’t mix came in the MEN’s report of the Wanderers 3-1 win at West Ham. As Vital Bolton Wanderers pointed out, their assertion that Bolton had not won at Upton Park for 44 years was slightly wrong… they were a mere 41 years out.

In fact, Bolton also won at West Ham in the League Cup in 1994, when a Super John McGinlay brace helped us on our way to Wembley.

But the long wait for a league win at Upton Park was ended in 2005 when your favourite Spaniard and mine Ivan Campo scored the decisive goal.

So, for making the Mancs look stupid, we salute you Ivan…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv69mqem2-I]

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- Alan Hansen reckons Hull City and West Brom definitely won’t get relegated, which means it’s more likely that Bolton will.

- Not everyone was over the moon with the free coach travel to West Ham, especially this fan who had to sit next some drunken teenagers on the way home.

- Following on from my post about the Met’s approach to swearing Bolton Wanderers fans, more evidence of double standards within the game as Joe Kinnear gets off scot-free for his four-letter tirade against journalists.

- Sam Allardyce lashes out at his former boss Mike Ashley for not giving him enough cash (déjà vu anyone?).

- And finally… this picture of Bolton from 1959 which shows Burnden Park in the background…

Picture courtesy of Bolton Museum & Archive Service, some rights reserved.

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The small matter of policing a football match probably isn’t at the top of the Metropolitan police’s agenda right now, what with their boss being forced out of office by Boris Johnson and their trigger-happy anti-terrorist tactics against Jean Charles de Menezes three years ago being scrutinised by an inquiry.

But I thought their policing at the West Ham game on Sunday was pretty poor.

From the outset they made it clear they weren’t going to tolerate Wanderers fans making gestures or shouting obscenities in the direction of the West Ham fans. Before the game had even kicked off an officer had given verbal warnings to a couple of lads behind me.

I have no problem with that in theory. Nor was I concerned as the game went on and those same fans were ejected from the ground after failing to heed their warnings. Personally I prefer to watch the game than the opposition fans, having paid £35 to get in.

The problem is that if you’re going to make an example out of Bolton fans then you need to apply the same standards to the West Ham fans too, otherwise you just give the idiots an excuse to cause more trouble.

The Met’s tactics at Upton Park were in stark contrast to Fulham’s segregation policy a few weeks ago, where home and away fans were left to mingle both in the stand and the concourses. It worked pretty well except for when one drunken Fulham fan started taunting the Bolton fans by waving a scarf in their direction (the fan was thrown out by the stewards and the storm in a tea cup blew over pretty quickly).

Was this change in tactics (I assume the Met would also have overseen the policing at Craven Cottage) a response to the widely-reported racist taunts aimed at Sol Campbell by Spurs fans at Portsmouth a week earlier?

Who knows, but it was certainly clear that the police were focusing their efforts on the away fans. A couple of West Ham fans were thrown out towards the end of the first-half but many more went unpunished.

The incident that left a particularly sour taste in the mouth came towards the end of the match after one particularly eloquent West Ham fan started taunting two disabled Wanderers fans who were sat near the divide, shouting ‘shut the f*** up you f***ing spastics’ and doing the kind of impressions of disabled people that you usually see in primary school playgrounds.

I looked over at one of the police officers stood near me (he was wearing a cap rather than a helmet so I assume he was more senior) expecting him to instruct one of his men to go and eject the offending Hammer. Instead he stood listening and smirking for a while before eventually sending one of his officers over to issue a pretty tame telling off… to the wrong guy!

A few moments later, when Matty Taylor’s screamer went in, another West Ham fan ran 20 yards to shout more obscenities at the two disabled fans. This was by far the most aggressive act I saw by any fan all afternoon.

So what did the police do? That’s right, they threw out the disabled fans. It was pretty embarrassing really, watching them escort an elderly man on crutches out of the ground. It took them about five minutes just to get him up the stairs.

It was a cowardly decision and a very poor advert for a police force that could do with some good PR right now.

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- The Independent’s match report of the West Ham game, in which Gianfranco Zola makes the questionable assertion that his side were in complete control until Robert Green’s howler.

- Vital Bolton Wanderers’ player ratings for the West Ham game, which seem a bit low on the whole.

- Also from The Independent, their reporter Glenn Moore arguing that the so-called 39th game, an idea that now seems dead in the water, would be good for clubs like Bolton (he actually says Wigan and Hull but it’s fair to say we fall in to the same category in terms of stature).

- Michael Owen’s omission dominated the headlines in the reporting of Fabio capello’s latest England squad. But from a Wanderers perspective, the inclusion of Matthew Upson ahead of Gary Cahill after yesterday’s game raises a few eyebrows. And Robert Green, really?

- Gary Megson is planning to buy (yet another) defensive midfielder in the January transfer window.

- And finally… an amusing (albeit fictional) insight in to Megson’s sex life.

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Here’s what the various internet discussion forums made of the 3-1 away win at West Ham United…

- It was a fantastic away win made all the better by the fact it was so unexpected… and with Gavin McCann in the team too!

- It’s now time for everyone to get off Gary Megson’s back and get behind both him and the team.

- People should shut up about McCann too. His passing and tackling were outstanding and he was man of the match. He made Garth Crooks’ team of the week along with Jussi Jaaskelainen.

- After his mistakes for the first two Wanderers goals, Robert Green looks like the most overrated keeper in the Premier League. Jaaskelainen, on the other hand, was world class.

- Gary Cahill’s return to the team has had a huge impact, particularly on Gretar Steinsson and Andy O’Brien.

- Kevin Nolan had a great game too, although he probably won’t get the credit he deserves for it.

- Mark Noble should have been sent off for his tackle on Steinsson.

- The away support was fantastic and for that Phil Gartside deserves some credit for putting on the free bus travel.

- This result leaves Gary Megson’s critics with egg on their faces (this blog included) but we would still be better off in the long term without him.

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