Bolton - Match Thread

Hatch99

Its gonna be a tough one lads...a physical battle as always against Sams men !! Glad Davies is still out, and I see Ben Haim is suspended.

Looks like Gardner will miss out, will we play Rocha or will he go for Hudd at centre half for the physical strength !!!

COYS

therecklessone

Team news

In: Mido
Out: King, BAE
Probable: Huddlestone, Gardner

BBC Squad: Robinson, Cerny, Chimbonda, Stalteri, Lee, Dawson, Gardner, Rocha, Jenas, Zokora, Murphy, Tainio, Ghaly, Malbranque, Lennon, Defoe, Keane, Berbatov.

Spurs striker Diitar Berbatov recalls his debut against Bolton:

"It was my first game in England and it was hard for me.

"Bolton are a physical team but things are different now from that first day.

"We're playing at home and have a great chance to win but we know it will be difficult as Bolton are a hard team to beat."

cxcully

Stuck at work-no TV or BBC Radio 5 Live....3-1 up,Robbie Keane just sent off on the Beeb website-what the hell is going on????

cxcully

Jesus,that's some performance-they demolished Bolton by the sound of it.It's bittersweet-what could have been this season....but more importantly it bodes well for the remaining UEFA and PL matches.

galinka

Watched it on the web - £7 per annum, can anyone beat that.
Zokora and Berbatov were world class today. Robbie took his goals brilliantly before being sent off.
Lee and Rocha also impressed at the back - i kid you not.
All hands to the pump in the second half but played fantastically well.
3 wins in 8 days - hard to believe we lost 4-0 to Utd.
Zokora went off injured at the end might be a problem.
Up to 9th and 3 around us lost today - Newcastle, Bolton and Portsmouth - if we keep this up could yet be 5th.
The good times are back?? Promises of last season are returning with a better squad. Berbatov must be worth £30M!!

therecklessone

Managed to find a wowking stream for the 2nd half, we were very good I have to say. Very calm, good use of possession, even looked like we had a spare body at times.

Berbatov is a class act! Zokora very good, Chimbonda and Dawson immense at the back, Lennon looks like he's back to his best.

Even Robbo made a couple of good stops!

therecklessone

galinka wrote:

Zokora went off injured at the end might be a problem.

Watched on ESPN HK, had Trevor Francis (who is a c*nt) and another Sky commentator, they said it looked like cramp? Should be ok for Bingo Club so.

Druid

Great game, showed real "grit" (as Jol likes to say) in the second half.

Berb is pure quality. I liked the impact Steed had too.

Particularly liked the cheer as the gooners went 2-1 down

WhiteWashMan

an awesome performance.

im teling you, jenas back in teh squad, and suddenly we are performing again.

i rate him highly, and thats what, 3 or 4 good goals in the last couple of games.

Hatch99

Great result and performance. Like most of you, I thought Zokora and of course Berbatov were class ! If only we could have some consistency eh ? Vital that we continue the good run next Sunday...

Nice to see us hitting some form at this stage of the season, hopefully some silverware could be in the offing !

WhiteWashMan

i would have given anything for the win over arsenal in the carling cup. not becuase its arsenal and it was a cup semi final, but becuase it would have guarenteed us european football next year.

but, thats not the way it goes. our run in is pretty 'good'. we play chelsea away and arsenal at home, and the rest are bottom half of the table teams. of course, on the day it means nothing, but id prefer that to playing the top 4 twice in our last 8 matches!

so ten matches left, and im looking for 21 points. i think we may just slip into a uefa cup spot, and heres hoping that protsmouth, everton, bolton and reading have a hard run in.

Robxxx7

WhiteWashMan wrote:

i would have given anything for the win over arsenal in the carling cup. not becuase its arsenal and it was a cup semi final, but becuase it would have guarenteed us european football next year.

but, thats not the way it goes. our run in is pretty 'good'. we play chelsea away and arsenal at home, and the rest are bottom half of the table teams. of course, on the day it means nothing, but id prefer that to playing the top 4 twice in our last 8 matches!

so ten matches left, and im looking for 21 points. i think we may just slip into a uefa cup spot, and heres hoping that protsmouth, everton, bolton and reading have a hard run in.

Couldn't agree more ... i still have hopes of a UEFA cup place, i think if we can continue this form until the end of season then we would be in one of the right places. I think this sundays game against the spammers will be a difficult one, if we can get our noses in front then the spammers crowd will get on the back of their players .... either way its revenge time and what would be sweeter than taking 3 points of them and push them further into the relegation mire

Bell & Hare Yid

Obviously we all would have loved to have beaten Arsenal and gotten to Sunday's final, but losing Carling Cup finalists don't get a European place so getting to the final would not have automatically guaranteed European football. The fact that Chelsea won, however, does mean that 6th place in the PL will now automatically get into Europe, so it means we now have to bridge only a 4 point gap and overtake Pompey, Everton and Reading to claim a European spot. Not an insurmountable obstacle if we can put a decent run together.

WhiteWashMan

Bell & Hare Yid wrote:

Obviously we all would have loved to have beaten Arsenal and gotten to Sunday's final, but losing Carling Cup finalists don't get a European place so getting to the final would not have automatically guaranteed European football. The fact that Chelsea won, however, does mean that 6th place in the PL will now automatically get into Europe, so it means we now have to bridge only a 4 point gap and overtake Pompey, Everton and Reading to claim a European spot. Not an insurmountable obstacle if we can put a decent run together.

as far as im aware, if the team that wins the carling cup is already in europe, then the runner up takes the european place.
otherwise it then goes to the league position.


im now preying that if we get beaten by chelsea, that the final will be made up of arsenal, chelsea or utd, to get another extra place in europe in the league!

5th, 6th and 7th in a eufa cup spot would be doable i reckon.

and theres the new format intertoto cup as well.

therecklessone

WhiteWashMan wrote:

as far as im aware, if the team that wins the carling cup is already in europe, then the runner up takes the european place.
otherwise it then goes to the league position.

Its league position Eamo.

Last season's CC spot went to Blackburn in 6th place rather than Wigan as runners-up.

Andrew 83

Great game all round. Everyone played excellently except for I thought, to an extent, Lennon. Although he's very good on the ball he didn't seem to make many intelligent runs when he didn't have it in order to receive it. Berbatov was different class. A great game to go over to anyway, I came home happy