To the Council House

We have a lot to catch up on since the last post so let's get on with the public attack on Mark Clattenburg.

It will have escaped nobodys attention that Bolton should have had a goal on Saturday and this is now the fifth game this season where we have had Mr Clattenburg and haven't got three points from it. Now we at The Towers aren't ones for stats but the list of refs we have had in the league so far this season reads thus:

Mark Clattenburg 5
Chris Foy 3
Steve Bennett 3
Phil Dowd 3
Andre Marriner 2
Mike Jones 2
Alan Wiley 2
Peter Walton 1
Mike Dean 1
Martin Atkinson 1

Now, in an utterly unscientific way, this would pre suppose that we aren't going to get him again this season, and in no way are we going to blame him for the games that we have lost with him in charge this season, to Villa and Stretford, and the draws with Stoke and Citeh (he did send Craig Bellamy off for tripping over his laces), but his staggering decision on Saturday, when only he and everyone's favourite grandad Roy Hodgson saw the supposed push by SuperKev on Hangeland, could now hang over us like the Sword of Damocles (we're all still happy but at any moment a big sword could land on our head sending us down to The Championship if you don't know your Greek legend). SuperKev claimed that the referee hardly gives him anything and St Owen later backed the captain. Funnily enough it is now SuperKev that could be in trouble with the law after his comments. Maybe he could ring up Clattenburg and ask him how you go about circumnavigating the rules.

Otherwise the game was an unremarkable mish mash of Fulham defending and Bolton unable to break them down. The fact that we kept a clean sheet has to be applauded, especially as the defence had to make do without Gary Cahill. We certainly had enough shots on target but the lack of goals is now becoming a worry. The midfield has hardly changed since the days of the former manager and there is little possibility of it changing for tonight's game as it is envisioned here that St Owen will go for the same team and formation that he played at The Emirates. We have said it previously that Tamir Cohen appears to be resting on the laurels of his early season form and that Matty Taylor appears to be settling into the kind of playing attitude that called time on his period at Portsmouth, both of which are reflected by the ratings in the Tory report of the game.

So what of tonights game? Well, the first thing to note is the players that aren't available. The bad news is that Klasnic is still unavailable and Weiss cannot play under the terms of the loan agreement, but this is softened by the news that The Badger is out for a couple of months after suffering an injury in the game at The Emirates, so at least something good came out of the match. With Gary "Gaz" Cahill probably out for the season, against a forward line that can sometimes turn it on with bewildering speed and skill, our new central defensive partnership of Zat Knight and whoever he gets tonight will certainly have their work cut out. Cahill's problem is something that you just cannot guard against and is the first time in my life that I can remember a player being out with a blood clot. Being a clot yes, blood clot no. Some would ask why another central defender wasn't brought in during the window and the answer was because we didn't need one. We need one now, as our third choice central defender is now The Shitt, which should have any Bolton fan reaching for the smelling salts. Makes you wonder what the terms of Nicky Hunt's loan are.
City themselves are missing Craig Bellamy but with Tevez, Adebayor et al it is still akin to the 300 against the Persians, Bolton being the Spartans. Nobody is making out that Cahill is Leonidas, he himself has managed to make some mistakes this year (blame that on who you want) but I would rather have a defence with him in it than without him. The central midfield will have to be solid with a speedy midfielder to launch any counter attack up to our lone striker, and I don't mean the misfiring Swede. This is why I would advocate throwing Wilshere into the midfield from the off as the manager is thinking about. These are the kind of games that make men of young footballers and with Taylor about as fleet of foot as a box of nails he would be the one I would replace. If he doesn't get any game time soon it will seriously piss off Wenger and I can't believe that I am countenancing keeping that grumpy, myopic twat happy.

This weeks comedy moment comes courtesy of the crapwebsite not being able to spell "intention" and making it sound like St Owen was saying something else during his preview to tonight's game....

I've been frustrated for him because the intension was to play him against Liverpool

Tension in the ranks already, but at least it's not the same kind of tension we had during 2009. 75-1 on a 2-0 win tonight. Win that and I'm off to Vega$.

We return tomorrow.