The famous Manny Road blog

Jlloyd likes to talk, but has he done the math?

Wednesday February 18th, 2009

Jlloyd Samuel feels nice and rested… but will it do him any good against West Ham this weekend?

Jlloyd Samuel seems to have become Bolton Wanderers’ official spokesman during this international/FA Cup fallow period. A whole host of Samuel-based stories – not all of them especially fascinating, it has to be said – have kept the Wanderers news pages churning out copy during this terminally-slow-news couple of weeks.

One of Samuel’s more, ahem, interesting opinions was that Bolton would benefit from the break, a claim that immediately set alarm bells ringing in my head, with the memory of the supposed benefits of resting players against Sporting Lisbon last season still relatively fresh in the memory.

So just how accurate is Samuel in claiming the Wanderers will benefit from this break?

I looked back at the Whites’ performances following international breaks going back to the start of last season, and this is what I found…

Following the six international breaks last season, Bolton won two (one against Manchester United, to be fair) and lost four.

So far this season there have been four international breaks, with Bolton losing two, drawing one and winning one.

Which, if my calculations are correct, means we have a 30 per cent success rate… not exactly a solid basis for Samuel’s optimism.

Given the relatively low number of players that Bolton send on international duty, should we have a better record following these rest periods? Or does this just show that the idea that players play too many games these days is a nonsense?

Tell us your views in the comments below…

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Tags: BoltonWanderers, FACup, ManchesterUnited, SportingLisbon, WestHamUnited

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