The tunnel at the end of the light

Well, it's fair to say that after the first four league games under the charge of St Owen we have got the number of points with him in the managerial hot seat that we would have expected to have. It is probably also fair to say that we would have expected this amount of points under the former manager but the performances have been better and the football more pleasing. However we now go into a run of games that will define our season. It is two months before Stretford United await us at Old Trafford and in that time we have nine games that we must expect to get something out of. Yes, even Citeh away. Fulham, Wigan (twice), Blackburn, Wolves, West Ham, Sunderland and Everton are games that, if the right set of results happen, would get us near, or even over, the magical forty points. The team has been unlucky in the games against The Arse and The Scousers and had to drag a result out against the inbreds, but they were competitive for a large part of those games, and have suffered bad luck in all. It is time, now, to thrust our chests out, breath in the air, have a cough and get on with the job of keeping us in the Premier League. And when I say we, I of course mean St Owen.

It is a long time since Bolton have been called industrious in a report, but that is exactly what they were called in The Telegraph, although The Currant take a different view and The Mirror suggest Bolton were "comfortably and convincingly beaten", although we all know that their writers hate us, especially that bitch Collymore. The Nazi calls us "lambs to the Anfield slaughter", which is a bit harsh and The Express suggest that if Bolton had been more adventurous we may have got something from the game. Maybe if Bolton want to know how to win games by grinding out a result they should look at Liverpool, if what the Observer suggests is true. The Indy quotes St Owen's opinion of the second goal as "Wherever that shot was going, it wasn't the net".

Now, remember those few days when Little Sam was in charge and all he could do was look for positives in every game? Have you forgotten? Look here. However, Little Sam, to his credit, was a doofus in front of the camera whereas St Owen knows what to say and how to say it. And he says to the crap website

The lads acquitted themselves well and showed their quality and their desire to do well. We have to pick ourselves up, take the positives and look forward to our next game.

So far, so Little Sam. However, he then says

I've been delighted with how they have gone about their business on the training ground because it takes hard work on the training ground for it to be replicated in matches.

This is more like it. The former manager (the other one, not Little Sam) would probably have come out with a quote akin to being anally raped by the supporters and then having his flaccid corpse thrown onto the track at Horwich Parkway.

He finally says

I've been delighted with how we went about ourselves.

Now, I go about myself once a week, purely on medical grounds. I hope he doesn't mean like that otherwise public decency issues come into play. This final sentence suggests he may still have to learn a little bit more about the soundbite, but I would like to think that he was probably just wanting to get the F out of Anfield, a shit heap that makes Moss Side look like Eden. If I was Liverpool I'd build a new stadium on the docks not the nearby Parkkkkkkk. Indeed, if I was Liverpool, I wouldn't build a new stadium in Liverpool.

Anyway, in view of Liverpool winning, tomorrow I have to go about cleaning the house so there may not be a post. Suffice to say, John Terry is a twat.

Got my fingers, got my toes...

Here is a photo of some dirty scouser kicking Jussi in the head whilst scoring a goal. I'll admit, while this game was being shown on MOTD, I was helping Mrs X with some hiccups, so its best if I leave it until tomorrow when I can have a proper look on the unpartisan Goals on Sunday. I'm sure it wasn't some sort of ploy.

I Hate Scousers....

..is something that Gary Neville would say. I naturally wouldn't, our Liverpudlian friends being one of the funniest, most loveable, law abiding members of the United Kingdom. It says here, on this note Mrs X left for me with the words "Put this on your blog or there's no Scouse for you tonight. Lar". And not scouse like that, get your mind out of the gutter.

As you can see from the above photo, Rafa Benitez is very excited about meeting Bolton at Anfield tomorrow, having won the last six games against us, even if the last one was won by a little bit of cheating. But that was B.C. (Before Coyle..keep up). The former BEN reports that St Owen is to "unleash" Weiss and Wilshere (as and when Wilshere actually signs, nothing official on that yet although the former BEN reports that he has in the same article), which does kind of make them sound like the Doberman that used to patrol the grounds of my old local in Manchester on a leash that was just long enough for it not to reach the road. It will be interesting to watch what they could do to a back line that consists of Carragher, Skrtel, Insua and Kyrgiakos, who aren't the most impressive defence Liverpool have ever had. Liverpool aren't exactly firing on all cylinders, almost as if someone has taken their wheels and put their Ford Escort on bricks. There is no Torres, only a good thing, Gerrard is hobbling, altough I say that now and he'll probably get two tomorrow, and they are having to survive on a forward line of N'Gog and Kuyt.

Living with a Liverpudlian, I do see at first hand the kind of emotional wringer they're going through at the moment, but just as no one outside of Bolton supporters could see why Megson had to go, it seems that no one outside of Liverpool supporters can see why Benitez has to stay and there are parallels. Just as T'Wanderers claiming thirteenth place last season wasn't the point with the fans, knowing that one good season does not a succesful manager make, especially as those that finished underneath us were just more dire, so Liverpool fans appreciate that a struggling season for them, in relative terms, does not make a bad manager. Benitez may have been caught by surprise by Spurs, Citeh and Villa making a challenge and Arsenal being ahead of Arse Vinegars curve but he wasn't the only one. His problem has been too many big game players going missing against smaller teams, see Wolves on Wednesday, and that is something that Bolton can exploit tomorrow. We were unfortunate not to get a win, never mind a draw, in September and if we play that way, with Jet Heels and As And When running at their defence, I can see a positive result. Even if it is 56 years since we won there. And at 50-1 on Betfair, I've gone for a 2-0 win. Appreciated, I do that every week.

Surprisingly, both Hansen and Lawro have gone for a Liverpool win (no news on Tommo yet but I can have a guess), as have the MEN. Well, its not like they recently lost to a Championship side is it? It is surprising to see that, so have Vital Bolton. Notwithstanding what was said above, I think a draw. Liverpool have good players and they must understand what Rafa means when he waves his hands around even if no one but McTaggart and Big Sam do. However if we play to potential I can see us put another nail in their Champions League coffin, which will cue some domestic violence in X Towers.

Until tomorrow, broken fingers allowing.

UPDATE: Obviously, just as I posted this, as and when became here and now. Welcome to Bolton Jack Wilshere. You'll never leave.

Can I have my spoon back?

Usually, the transfer window is a big yawn fest for Bolton fans, lots of rumours that come to nothing and then a, supposed, last minute bid for Leroy Lita is all we've had for the past few years, bar the odd selling of a leading striker to Chelsea. Not so this year. With Vladimir Weiss and Stuart Holden already in the fold, moves are still afoot to bring Jack Wilshere in from Arsenal, even if some of our friends from Islington do not like the idea of him coming. At least he'll go back tougher.

According the the Mail, Bolton are interested in bringing in Aruna Dindane, who will not return to Portsmouth due to the money problems at Fratton Park. However, although it is mentioned at the top of the article that we are interested, it is not substantiated anywhere else, so I think we can forget that. Plus, do we really need another top heavy striker, we've already got two.

On the way out appears to be The Shitt, although that appeared to be the case earlier in the season when the former manager didn't want him and he still stayed. Good performances however in the African Cup of Nations have put him in the shop window, as they say. My local shop hasn't got a bargain bucket for unwanted crap in the window, and, in fact, no other shop that I know does, not even the 99p shop in Hayes out of which someone once ran after a bit of low rent shoplifting only to run straight into me, thereby earning a rather nasty graze to the forehead when I accidentally punched him. What I am saying, basically, is that we will pay the airfare to wherever it is he wants to go to take another vestige of the former regime out of the club. Even Oldham.

In other news, some of our inbred friends managed to get themselves arrested on Tuesday, possibly for bringing in a giant inflatable penis, whilst the Guardian quotes St Owen as saying that manager baiting is a social problem, the quote appearing underneath the photo of a Burnley fan who just appears to be a giant penis.

Locally (that's locally to Bolton, not locally to me otherwise this blog would be called Stick It Up Your Hammers, or something) both Holden and Weiss have been praising the virtues of Bolton Wanderers in the former BEN. Holden says:

"I consider myself a box-to-box midfielder and get myself up and down. I like to get on the ball and pass it, create things, and get forward"

while Weiss, who is described by the copy editor as "Jet Heeled" (bless), says of St Owen:

"He tries to play football and that’s what I like, so I think we’ll do really well at the club"

which kind of makes you want to get rid of The Shitt a bit quicker. Coyle himself said after Tuesday's game that he is "trying to bring in exciting players", and although we have already had a look at the differences since the former manager left, if you scoot over here (not yet, when I've finished) you will find a breakdown in the difference since Coyle took over. Not the same as my delightful prose, but you can't have everything.

Tomorrow, a look at the Liverpool game, which is one of only two times when there is discord in the X household. The other being when I hide her spoons. Until tomorrow, conde naz plinkton, as they say in my local. Their Eastenders, I can't be bothered trying to figure out what they're saying.

Tamir Cohen should tell him.

It's a bit harsh of the Burnley fans to give St Owen the moniker "Judas". After all, he did get them out of the Championship and allowed them to bask in the glory of the Premiership, starting well and then going the same way as all small backwaters and getting a right dicking from the larger boys, including Bolton, before going back from whence they came, to do things with their brother's sheep. Or something.
You can see why they would bring in the relgious imagery. He has gone for more money (to spend) and he did tell them that he would do something and then did something else. And he may have kissed them as they knelt in the Garden of Gethsemane, but would have had to get in between them and their mothers. But the man obviously holds them in great regard, likes the town even though he probably won't be able to walk through its streets again, which is probably a good thing, and gave them the most success they have had since the 1960's. Judas? He should be given the keys to the town. Even if they are made out of pastry.
However, they aren't the only ones to get their religious history wrong. It was Joshua who led the Jews into Canaan after Moses had become too big for his boots. So, does that make Brian Laws the saviour of Burnley? Don't hold your breath. No, please don't.

Now that our former manager has departed the north west, we will be looking at the press reports in a different way. Previously we have looked at them through bleeding eyes after trying to claw them out with our bare hands as we could look no more. Now we are trying to resist the rose tinted glasses.

Phil McNulty at the BBC, who seems to have made Bolton a season long project, has noticed what seems to have bypassed many of our Burnley friends; if you continue to go on about Owen Coyle you won't have enough time to get behind your team. So leave it.

Obviously, depending on which paper you read, Bolton either deserved the win and played well or didn't. The Currant suggests that the football that was played was "far removed from the Gary Megson style that Bolton supporters grew to hate so much" whereas The Guardian suggests that Burnley were the better side in the first half, obviously deciding that as a northern paper it has to be on the side of the most northerly team. But really, most of the papers concentrate on the fact that this was St Owen's first game against Burnley. Now that that is over, maybe we can concentrate on football, hmmm?

Otherwise it appears that, even after St Owen and Mr Whinger had a head to head after the double header last week when Mark Davies took a header to the floor after William Gallas tried to remove his leg from his head (eh?), Bolton will be taking Jack Wilshere on loan for the rest of the season. With Valdimir Weiss joining on loan from Citeh, if this deal comes off, and Bolton can probably offer Wilshere more first team football than his other suitors West Ham which Winegear will be asking for, we will have two exciting midfielders who could do a lot of good to get us further up the table. This may mean that Matty Taylor, who apparently played well last night, and Tamir Cohen, who may have been living off his early season goals for a bit too long, will be looking over their shoulder. It may also mean a move to a more permanent 4-4-2, which is what we are all looking for. As long as we win. Now, if only we could evoke the spirit of the late nineties and gazump West Ham and Spurs for Eidur.

Just joking kids. As always, I will say until tomorrow and hope to be here.

Regeneration: Part II

Aah, if there was anything that underlined the difference between the former and the present management, problems over who is the goalkeeping coach notwithstanding, it was this interview on Goals on Sunday over the weekend that severely underlined it. From the start of the interview he whinged, bent the truth and, if any more mind making up was needed, showed exactly why the fans didn't like him and why it was best that we parted company.
Now, let us get something straight. Again. If there was a choice between Little Sam and Mr Megson it is the latter that I would rather have in charge of my team but that is akin to asking with what blunt surgical instrument would you like your knackers to be removed. Yes we all know we were below Derby and on five points when he came in (even though Chris Kamara obviously didn't), yawn yawn yawn. The bit where he says that a fan rang into a show to complain about letting a goal in in a 4-1 away victory shows a like of understanding of irony that is the equal to our friends in middle America. His complete misunderstanding of the fans upset at going all the way to Lisbon to watch a side that they can watch on a Wednesday evening up at Leyland shows that he never really tried to bring the fans onside as maybe an apology at the time wouldn't have replenished their bank accounts but may have gone some way to appeasing them. Eight million for Elmander and he would have still signed him? Really? Nothing against Elmander, who does run around a lot to little effect, but he was brought into the club as a striker, not as someone who is "just not one of these people who gets goal upon goal upon goal". And then he bitches about being put on gardening leave and getting a guaranteed payment of more than I'll make in my life for the next year. Oh, and stuck somewhere in the interview is the bit about only playing seventeen players in the Premiership last year. Here Gary, look at this and tell me why it says twenty four played.

So there I was going to do this big thing about the differences between the GSO and St Owen. But I thought that would insult your intelligence.

Assassination attempt!!!!

Arriving home last night I intended to update Wikipedia, as is my wont in my, some may say anal, life but found myself unable to after reading this edit. A better bit of prose to sum up the tackle I cannot imagine. It shows up the two facedness of Arsene Whinger, who would have quite happily killed Martin Taylor a couple of seasons back but last night was just counting the tackles from either side, as if that makes Gallas' tackle legal.

But don't let that fool you into thinking that Bolton deserved to get anything out of last night's game. 2-0 up after 43 minutes I made the mistake of leaving my seat early to get to the bar before Fat Frank and has naked stomach. Standing next the the actor Nicholas Gleaves (you'd know him if you saw him) I heard the Rosicky goal go in and we shared a look, both knowing that a loss was on the way. I don't quite know what Jussi was thinking when the ball left Rosicky's boot but I don't imagine for one second that he thought the ball was going anywhere near the goal due to his cat like reactions to it. That would be a cat that has been dead for a couple of weeks and is stinking underneath the floorboards.

It shows the paucity of the squad that the GSO left St. Owen that the best that could be offered in the substitution of little Davies was The Badger, who immediately managed to get himself booked. After that Arsenal just picked us off at leisure, although both goals could have been stopped if someone had managed to get a foot in. SuperKev did well in his lone striker role but Ivan had little chance to impose himself on the game when he came on for Lee. However, we knew that Coyle would and could not change the way the team played overnight and SuperKev is still our best outlet, but the way that we played to go two goals up was better than I have seen live in a long time. Oh, and you couldn't hear the Arsenal fans until the third goal.

So, into the cup weekend and a win against Sheffield United would go a long way to kickstarting the season. Hopefully a full strength(ish) side will be played to give them the idea of what beating a team feels like before the Dingles come to town. And that, friends, will be tasty.

Regeneration: Part I

It will not have escaped your attention that over the Christmas period one person left their position as the nation's favourite and was immediately replaced by someone else. Many a tear was shed nationwide as a radiation riddled Doctor went through that regeneration thingy. But this isn't a Dr Who fan site.

However, the imagery when it comes to Bolton Wanderers could be regarded as apposite. Our own regeneration happened over Christmas, a man, literally dead on his feet, was gone and was replaced by a fresher, younger outlook. Both sent to their fate due to the actions of a man with blonde hair. OK, John Simm's was dyed and Gavin McCann is only half blonde, but you get the point. And neither wanted to go. The Doctor said so and our manager may have seen it coming but certainly wasn't saying so in the interviews he gave after the Hull game. Of course, there the similarities end. Many didn't want to see The Doctor go and are now wondering where that will leave the franchise in the hands of a relatively untested actor. In Bolton's case......

Tomorrow, we'll look at the Coyle effect and how it has already transformed the club, the fans and the players. But today we will look at the reign of Gary Megson, the Ginger Mourinho or, as we called him at The Towers, the Ginger Special One (GSO).

It would be fair to say, to paraphrase Bill Shakespeare, that I come here to bury Gary, not to praise him. Bury him deep, like nuclear waste with a 10,000 year half life with no hope of it being seen this side of the apocalypse. It has been said a hundred times in the past couple of years that we didn't want him and that the people that Fat Phil said "know the game" didn't actually include any Bolton fans (or Leicester or Notts Forest fans for that matter). A smattering of good results, beating Stretford for example, getting a good result in Munich and taking the club further in Europe than Big Sam were all good points that he never seemed to be able to capitilise on. The debacle in Lisbon and the capitulation to Wigan three days later put a nail in his coffin that he could never get out. Fair, he kept the club up after the Sammy Lee farago but at the same time alienated fans favourites (Stelios, Campo, Diouf), couldn't put a reign on Kev Nolan's weight gain and didn't get half as much for Anelka that he could have. He bought badly, for every Cahill, a Rasiak and a Paul Robinson, for every Lee Chung-Yong a badly misplayed Elmander or Danny Shittu. I mean, Danny Shittu. That's £2million of your money that you'll never see again.

It seems almost surreal now that at the last Bolton game I went to, in the league cup at Chelsea, fans were singing his name. (What do you mean part time supporter? you aren't saving up for a 4 week honeymoon in the USA.) However that started the downward spiral that saw him gone. Bad tactics, bad substitutions, bad hair and a bad attitude led to his dismissal. He still pops up, spouting off the same "below Derby" "used 18 players in a season" (NO, YOU F'ING DIDN'T!!!), less money than others (but more than Big Sam) gubbins, but it is fair to say that he won't be missed at T'Reebok. And they put him on gardening leave, as he couldn't agree a compensation package. God he must hate us.

It's not like I wish the man dead or anything, I'm sure his family love him. In Sheffield, where he lives. And he will be back but at the level that he should be at, not managing in the rarefied atmosphere of The Premiership. I'm sure Altrincham are looking for a coach.

The Joys of Friendly Debate.

Mrs X said to me when I started this blog that I would never have the hope of keeping it going regularly, what with a full time job saving London from eating itself, plus planning our wedding and trying to keep my Mrs X Snr. from coming down every weekend. And it looks like she was right, bearing in mind how long it has taken since the last entry below, plus the fact the even the dismissal year long gardening leave bestowed upon the GSO and the appointment of St. Owen could not get me onto the keyboard. However, at the moment The Towers are open and we will be giving our not unknowledgable opinion of what happened over the Christmas period tomorrow. Suffice to say, we had a grin that could eat shit.

But for God's sake, aren't Arsenal a bunch of poor winners. Moaning about kicking, pulling of hair, leaning on people's necks, Fabregas not getting a penalty, the list goes on, and on. However look at any press report and nothing is mentioned of it, not even by the employers of Stan "Bolton are rotten to the core" Collymore, the Mirror. They even took over the board on the BBC 606 to tell Bolton fans how awful our team are. All of this is not new to those of us who look back fondly on Martin Keown's own goal and Lehmann's jitters whenever he played at T'Reebok. We get it, Arsenal hardly had an answer to Bolton for a few years and usually blamed it on a physicalness that they didn't have an answer for even though that usually only came from one man and a man whose attributes their captain, one Mr T. Henry Esq., once opined that he would like to bring into his game. And their players are not as squeaky clean as their fans think they are; Rosicky on Sunday wasn't as bad as the time Flamini tried to take Ricky off at the knee at The Library but was still worthy of more than a yellow card.

I'll be there tomorrow night, trying to avoid the spittle that usually reigns down from our North London friends seated above us. I'd take a brolly, but even though I live in the smoke, I'm still northern.