Round 31: Forest vs Bolton

So what to make of last week? There has been much debate on here in the last week and most of it has centred on a few topics: player selection/form, reactions to us winning and fan booing.

So here's my two cents worth for anyone who is interested.

The player who has provoked two of those topics is the ever mercurial Christopher Mark Eagles. Now on his day Eagles is a fantastic player, nobody doubts that, and at the start of the season he was tearing teams apart. Unfortunately for him our defence seemed determined to undermine his good work at every opportunity hence our current league position, but I digress. Now his form has undoubtably dipped, again I don't think anybody would argue with that, nor with the idea that he needs to drop to the bench for abit to take the pressure off and let him freshen up and get back to his best. Fine pretty much everybody in agreement so far.

However, the reaction to his not being subbed last saturday was an absolute unremitting disgrace and anybody involved is frankly an embarassment to this club. End of debate. If the team had lost 4-0 then boos are completely understandable and the players would acknowledge that. But to boo a player because the manager has left him on? Get a grip.

Our club has had a certain reputation over the last decade or so. I'm not talking about the long ball thug reputation inaccurately gifted us by the media. I am talking about the image of us as a family club. A club where everyone is in it together and the players have a great relationship with the fans. It is the atmosphere which made players like Diouf, Campo and Anelka love their time with us. If you had asked any Bolton fan 20 years ago if they thought there'd be a time where we'd have a former Real Madrid player talking about his love for the club and how he considers Bolton home, I'm pretty sure you'd have been given a funny look. Allardyce may have been a big part of that, building on the ground work of the White Hot Years, but us fans played a huge part in it as well.

Nobody enjoys our current position, be they fan, player or staff. However if we really want to get back to the Premiership booing our own players is not going to do it. All that will do is firstly hound players out of the club, and we can't afford to lose talented players like Eagles, and secondly will give us a reputation which will make players think twice before signing for us. I know if I had a choice as a footballer between two clubs, one of whom's fans booed their players and the others didn't, it'd be a no brainer where I signed.

But enough of me ranting about the idiot behaviour of some of our fans, we won. Against the Dingles. Lets just enjoy that feeling for a moment.

Nice isn't it?

This weekend we head down to the City Ground to face Nottingham Forest.

Forest recently installed Billy Davies for a second stint in charge and pinched Julian Darby back from us.

Sitting a grand four points and four places above us we can't overhaul Forest if we win, or get ourselves in to the business half of the table. We can however get another monkey off our back, namely the complete lack of back to back league wins in the last......... erm......... yeah that long! Of course we've only won 9 games out of 30 all season so don't expect too much!

Team News

We know Riley is out with a broken foot. Freedman has said Holden, Mark Davies and Wheater are all set to feature in the squad. Note however that is "in the squad", so more likely on the bench than in the starting line-up.

Still good news though.

Predictions

Not sure I have faith in the team to put together back to back wins, particularly as we are away from home. However I can see us stealing a draw. 1-1, Sordell with the opener.