Bolton Wanderers v Derby County – Another Mess at the Macron

Article by Alan Houghton

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The mood in the Fanzone was full of optimism after our creditable performance at Chelsea. The bets were on at least a point against one of the favourites for promotion, Steve McClaren’s Derby County. For the first half hour, we gave as good as we got and even survived a dubious penalty when Andy Lonergan confirmed his hero status. But after Chris Martin made amends for his penalty miss and put Derby one up, there was only going to be one winner. We fell apart. The effort levels were there but the passes went astray and any semblance of shape and team work disappeared. It was as if going one down wasn’t in the script and therefore we didn’t have a response. Headless chickens spring to mind. We got it wrong again. It was no surprise when Chris Martin got his second and it could have been more if Steve McClaren had not told his team to put the brakes on, for fear of a non-existent comeback.

The highlight of the day was the Zorb football at half-time, which favoured Sumo Wrestling at times and the only positive was the club’s adoption of Blesma, who support limbless veterans as this season’s charity.

Dougie Freedman and the players have all made appeals to the fans to stick with them. The silence from the boardroom has been deafening. We want Dougie Freedman to succeed but it is getting very difficult to maintain that belief. The fans’ frustrations are growing as shown by the pitch invasions and the competition between the‘Freedman Out’ and ‘Gartside Out’ supporters. Things have to change and change quickly. Everyone at the club has to take responsibility for our current plight and do something about it or it’s time to consider their positions. If we don’t win at Fulham on Wednesday then I think things will get very ugly on Saturday at home to Bournemouth with the Freedman/Gartside out protests dominating the day and very probably winning the day, in Dougie Freedman’s case at least. It will be an act of kindness to him after all the horrific abuse he has taken so far, in trying to do a job in the most testing of circumstances.

Dougie Freedman sounded like a beaten man after the match, accepting responsibility for getting it wrong. He thought we could ‘out-football’ Derby County! I don’t know what he’s on because he must have been the only person in the ground who thought that. They are not one of the favourites for promotion for nothing and results this season already confirm their position and deserve more respect than that. Yet again, simple errors cost us the goals but it is the total lack of ideas and cohesion when we go behind that is the most worrying. At Chelsea on Wednesday there was plenty of fight and late on in the match, we really got into it and took the match to them and could have grabbed an equaliser. Maybe, the performance was good because they knew that they had to defend and not worry too much about attacking. But, back to Saturday and we pick young Joe Mason up front on his own. He’s not a target man and he’s not much use with his head, so why keep pumping long balls up to him? It’s going to come straight back at the defence. Play to the strengths of the players we have got. Come through midfield instead of the long punts cross field into the stands. There just not seem to be any direction at times.

The club might have won the court case last week but we didn’t come out of it with any honour after the judge’s comments. We are being poorly led from the top. It’s hard being a Wanderers fan these days. It’s like death by a thousand cuts. Another nail goes in the coffin every week. Failure is not in getting knocked down but in not getting up again.

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