Lady Luck Shines On The Wanderers
An audible sigh of relief was heard at the final whistle after Bolton emerged on the right side of a tough relegation scrap against fellow strugglers QPR. Mark Hughes will still be lamenting the dubious decisions by the officials, and asking himself how on earth they didn’t manage to get something out of that crucial match.
The game itself was largely devoid of quality and was completely overshadowed by the inadequate officiating. I don’t need to write about what happened as you’ll have either seen it or read about it in the post game match reports.
All I will say is that it is a great relief that for once it’s the Wanderers coming out with the benefit of bad decisions, but that in all honesty I did feel for QPR and to win games like that doesn’t feel quite right, as there’s very little honour in it. I think we’ll leave that feeling to United and Chelsea fans.
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Want To Feature In Episode 4 Of ‘No Holden Back’?
A loud and excited Stuart Holden celebrated Ivan Klasnic’s winner against QPR by posting a new video to his facebook page.
Go to his Facebook page and see the video here.
Stu wants his fans to e-mail him a short and fun ‘video question’ for the chance to be included in Episode 4 of the ‘No Holden Back’ series that follows him on his road to recovery.
We’re all far too ugly and unimaginative to go on camera, but we know you readers can come up with something great! E-mail your videos to noholdenback@live.com
Good luck!
Formation Roulette
The inevitable inevitability that is a Bolton Wanderers capitulation to a top club team is really starting to grate.
It has got to the stage where the games against the likes of City, United and Chelsea are such a foregone conclusion that you get the sense that we would have been happy to pre-arrange the scores of the previous two fixtures, in order to skip to the more competitive games.
The pragmatists amongst you will argue that it makes no sense to expend all your energy in probable defeat, when much more closely contested and winnable fixtures are ahead. There is an element of logic to this, but as a fan you have to want so much more. I don’t want to wax lyrical about the good old days of Big Sam’s time at the helm, as his tenure was by no means perfect, but the enjoyment derived from being the thorn in the side of any team, and being hugely unpopular for it, was fantastic. This was undoubtedly built on solid defensive foundations and a ‘have-a-go’ spirit, both of which are sadly lacking in the current squad.
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No Holden Back: Episode 2
Good News! Stu Holden has released the second of his ‘No Holden Back’ videos! (Okay, it’s not ‘good news’ but its some Bolton news that isn’t too rubbish or depressing).
Click here to go to the YouTube video
The series is a essentially a quick look into some of the things the young American is up to over in the United States whilst undertaking his knee injury rehabilitation.
It’s just a bit of fun and typical of him to keep in contact and make sure his fans are up-to-date.
As ever we wish him well!
P.S – here’s Episode One again if you missed it – Episode One
‘No Holden Back’ – Stuart Holden Releases Rehab Videos Online
Bolton Wanderers favourite American has announced on his Facebook page that he will be uploading a series of YouTube videos to document his road to recovery and rehabilitation from the serious knee injury he suffered last season.
Episode 1 is now online and goes behind the scenes of Stuart’s training camp over in Delaware, USA. The video is narrated by Stuart himself and clearly aims to give an open and frank account of the rehabilitation itself, but also touches on his emotions surrounding the injury and his recovery from it.
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Coyle Denies Formation Is A Problem
Owen Coyle has jumped to his own defence regarding the criticism of his recent tactics against both Norwich and Wigan. The Bolton manager puts the emphasis squarely on the substandard performance of the players and disagrees that the change in formation has had any major effect.
Bizarrely, Coyle said that the reason for bringing back Kevin Davies to partner N’gog was based on their performance together in the reverse fixture at Wigan back in mid-October. Although we did come away from that fixture with a positive result and the two front men did play well, that was nearly 4 months ago now and doesn’t say much for Owen’s selection criteria if he’s happy to overlook the importance of in-form players and the value of a consistent strategy.
Additionally, he offered no reason for dropping Fabrice Muamba from the starting line-up and The Bolton News reported Muamba as saying on his official Twitter page, “I can’t really tell the reason why I wasn’t involved today, that will get me into much trouble but thanks for all your messages”. I’m sure that by now many of you will have seen the ‘with and without’ Muamba statistics that have been going round between fans, which although not completely conclusive do make for an interesting read.
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