Title says it really but I'll expand a little. Firstly we sent out our ONLY remaining fit striker who actually BELONGS to us on loan. Craig Davies has 4 goals from 20 matches with just 8 starts and yet who do we now have? Lukas Jutkiewicz, borrowed from Middlesborough with 2 goals from 24 appearances. In other words we've replaced a man who gets 1 in 5 with a man who gets 1 in 12 and we've BORROWED Lutkiewicz. Why? We have THREE strikers of our own now playing elsewhere. Eaves, Sordell and Davies. No Left Back: Dougie somehow managed not to realise that McNaughton wasn't going to be allowed out on loan again despite him playing every game since Ole Solskjaer took over and he somehow failed to notice that West Brom only want to let Dawson out for a month AND that several other clubs were interested, clubs with more money than us. We signed a kid called Bastos and he's gone straight to the development squad, we signed popescu, a LEFT BACK who's TWENTY already but guess what? He's apparently here only on trial and his "trial" is to play in the development squad. We signed Liam Trotter from Millwall, a midfielder who is actually quite decent BUT we've done a very strange deal there. We've borrowed him till the end of the season when his contract is up and then we pay 400K for him. WTSF? Mason who I didn't rate to begin with isn't coming anyway due to "personal reasons". I don't know what the board and Dougie are doing. Do they want us in League One? They certainly seem to be heading the right way to send us there. I appreciate money is tight but the lack of foresight and the inexplicable decision to sell one striker and send another out on loan then bringing in someone else's worse performing player makes no sense by itself. Having absolutely no contingency plan to bring in the left back we so desperately need when the primary targets were clearly not going to happen smacks of an almost criminally negligent lack of planning. I'm a patient person, I always have been and I like to give managers time but this has to stop. Frankly I think Dougie is tactically inept and keeps jamming square pegs into round holes with his 4-5-1 at all times approach when it clearly doesn't work for us. I think Gartside must be held to account, he's now appointed FOUR managers (Hargreaves appointed Big Sam before stepping down) and ALL of them have been failures while massive amounts of cash have been wasted and the debt has grown by nearly five hundred and fifty percent. That level of incompetence would have seen him fired long ago anywhere else. From where I sit I believe both Gartside and Freedman should be shown the door in the summer whether we avoid relegation or not. Eddie has GOT to wake up and step in while he still has a football club to run.
This forum is as dead as our club. I'd hoped there would be at least one other Trotter here but I guess I'm the only one after all.
It was around the start of the year where the (i think it was) £162m debt came out, i would guess that they would not have wanted to invest in this window, maybe they might rethink Dougies employment at the end of the season. On paper, you have a strong squad, but they do seem to be under performing. Went to the KP for Leicester Bolton, though Bolton played well, not many have come here and scored 3, although Beckford was as lazy as i remember him.
Thank you wizard. Actually Beckford was on a very good run of form and working hard too when he got injured. I know he can be lazy and inconsistent but I put it down to him being a "confidence" player. If he plays well once he can go on a run, a rich vein of form that gives great results because he's got undeniable ability especially at this level but when things go badly for him it can quickly make him disappear and become anonymous. I hope he's fully fit soon because without him we look bereft of any kind of goal threat and we need him back pronto especially given our league position and woeful lack of goals in recent times.
If your playing 1 up front regularly, i guess that hes pretty reliable pick, knows where the net is as long as the midfielders are willing to do the chasing/closing down jobs. Always seems to take chances, but doesn't seem willing to help create them, but that was Leicester Beckford, he may have improved since then, and Pearson does have a knack of knocking wind out of players like him and its been questioned how he would manage the "big names" if we did go up.
There's no question that Beckford CAN be lazy and doesn't do much in the way of dropping back to get the ball to run with BUT with the right sort of service I'd play him all day long. He has a happy knack of being in just the right place at the right time for a poached goal as well as being able to shoot pretty well from around the box. I think he'd do best in a 4-4-1-1 or 4-4-2 myself, get the ball to him and have another front man in support and I can honestly see him getting twenty or more in a full season at this level. Unfortunately the clueless clown currently calling himself the manager is playing a 4-5-1 so deep you need a DSRV to find the midfield. I'm not entirely certain but I think he might be fining any midfielder who actually enters the final third and he drops any that have the temerity to score. Anyway, enough gripes about Dougie Freedman, your lot look well set this year, I think pearson has done a pretty good job till now from what I've seen and with luck you'll go up and those prima donnas at QPR won't. I've got no time for London clubs I'm afraid. Anyway have a good one wizard.
Cheers mate, hopefully we don't shoot ourself in the foot between now and the end of the season and hope that things turn around at Bolton next year so they are challenging for the playoffs or even the autos
There may be more than one LPP, but you are correct, that this part of this forum is dead. Other clubs on here have a thriving board, but once the BBC gave up the ghost, there wasn't enough of a concerted effort to get everyone in the same place. I frequent JA606, although not as often as when it was BBC. I am also a horse race fan, and the board on here is good, yet the board on JA606 is dead .... pays your money etc. As far as BWFC goes - how great is hindsight eh? Jutkie looking like a superstar, Mason knocking em in and Moritz coming good. A lot of your original post remains true, but for now at least, the sun is shining
Keep it going guys and you'll build a following on here to enjoy. This is a really good forum for a decent chat. Looks like you're getting Kev McNaughton back from us on loan for another season - would you want Joe Mason as well? We've just brought in Adam Le Fondre, Javi Guerra and Federico Macheda up front to join Nicky Maynard and Friazer Campbell (at the moment). Maybe another loan spell for Mason is on the cards.
