Bolton Match Zone

Anything Could Happen: Bolton Travel To Inconsistent Oldham

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Bolton are now in the play-off places abut if they are to stay there, they need to continue winning, especially with teams having games in hand over us. Tomorrow’s trip sees us make a short journey over to Boundary Park, to play an Oldham side who do blow hot and cold.

IAN EVATT | Manager ahead of Oldham Athletic away fixture – YouTube

It’s sort of understandable where Evatt’s coming from with dealing with criticism of Saturday’s performance. We were alright, even if we were a bit lacking in the final third at times. But if a radio co-commentator is analysing a game and has an opinion, then he needs to give. It’s the same with pieces like this, Saturday was good enough and I was certainly happy with how it went, but you can’t expect people to point out that maybe you can do something better if that’s what they think. Evatt is right though, he’s going to play in a certain style and we’re not a team that’s going to smash it downfield for the sake of it. People do have to accept that and it isn’t something that will change.

Team news

Shaun Miller seems tipped to start ahead of Eoin Doyle, while I get the logic I’d rather us stick with Doyle for now unless it’s a genuine need to rest him. There don’t seem to be any new injury problems, but there’s no news on whether Marcus Maddison has recovered from his non-COVID illness.

Previously

Our last trip to Boundary Park was in April 2017, when Lee Erwin scored the only goal of the game as we lost 1-0 to a ten man Latics side. That was during our mini-wobble which meant promotion from League One had to wait until the final day, and that result ended any slim hopes we had of winning the league. Back in October Nathan Delfouneso had equalised but Zak Dearnley scored an injury time winner as we lost 2-1 at the UniBol.

The opposition

Oldham have improved since we last played them, bottom when we lost to them, they have moved up to 15th, and are nine points behind us. They still have David Wheater but he hasn’t featured this season, their most dangerous player is wide player Dylan Bahamboula, who can be exciting but inconsistent, and probably won’t be Oldham next season…

Prediction

Tough one to call. Oldham are a funny team, anything could genuinely happen. I’m going to play it down the middle and go for a draw. 1-1

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1 comment

  • Mike Stones says:

    I can understnd the coments about the way Bolton played. By the end of the first half it was obvious that Barrow had just parked their bus ( a low block in modern parlance) and much of Bolton’s passing was in ront of their first bank of five players with many passes sideways or backwards, making a very easy eveinng for Barrow.
    After seventy munites nothing had changed and then all the substiutes were ‘like for like’ players so until the end of the match the pattern continued with hardly any pressure on the Barrow goalkeeeper all evening.
    The manager has now moaned about negative comments and said that his team do not ‘lump it upfield’. Had he listened properly what the radio commentator was saying it was to change the formation and get people attacking the opposition by dribbling past them, thereby giving them more to think about and this could create openings. I have to say I had said to myself during the match (after about 30 minutes) ‘Where is Plan B?’ as I got more and more frustrated watching the two centre-halfs passing to each other in the Bolton half, over and over again, with no pressure on the ball at all – it was like a training sesssion. I have to say I was dissapointed with the lack of ideas coming from the coaching bench to try something different becasue the game just drifted from the start to the 92nd minute.

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