Bolton V Blades

[blade1889]

So here we are at last, the start of our final season here or the start of the end of another failed promotion campaign? Time will tell.

Got my ticket this morning, surprised to read we've just sold out circa 3,400 with 300 more on sale tomorrow.

Full of naive optimism as usual, Blade in charge, Blade as captain and players who actually want to wear the shirt for a welcome change. Can't wait to get going again.

Long
Bradford Wilson O'Connell Hussey
Adams Basham Fleck Duffy
Sharp Clarke

Is my predicted line-up, decent at the back with the main question marks over Long and Wilson and whether or not Brayford will be off. Good on the wings, but again a big question mark over whether Che will still be here come September and surely strong up front with two players who average roughly a goal every other game in league one. Central midfield probably our weakest area and one Wilder is known to be looking to improve.

As for Bolton, does anybody really know what to expect of them? Could absolutely walk it or have a tough season of 'transition'.

As I'm optimistic we'll probably lose 2-0.

 

[Muzzle]

We won't walk it, seen alot of your fans saying it is a hard league to get out of. No one really knows how this team will play. Am going for an exciting 2-2 draw with your fans out singing our lot and an even start to the season

 

[blademan89]

Just booked a trip to lanzarote at the weekend so not going now oh well millwall will be my 1st away game. No idea what to expect from the game but hopefully a vast improvement on last year's 1st game. Any Bolton fans, why are you not giving us the whole lower tier do your fans share it now?

 

[Muzzle]

Think it may be to do with the cost of stewarding and police, GMP have raised their match prices again and we are still cost cutting, so believe that is the reason

 

[blademan89]

Think it may be to do with the cost of stewarding and police, GMP have raised their match prices again and we are still cost cutting, so believe that is the reason

Surely the extra 800 tickets at £30 a pop would cover it there certainly seems to be the demand on our side. Maybe you did offer them all but we didn't think we would sell em all so didn't take them in case we had to cover the costs

 

[Muzzle]

I'm not completely sure to be honest, but I know that the cost savings we have had to do affect stewarding and catering, and (even though a bit unfair), we ask clubs to guarantee they will sell the full allocation, if clubs don't by a certain date (not sure how long this is), they won't offer the full allocation. Unfortunately, it is the financial situation we are in at the moment so not sure how long this will last

 

[Sheffsteel]

As it's the first match its really difficult to predict.

Half our team will feature new players making their debuts and we also have a new manager so it's a fresh start for us with most Blades quietly confident we'll be up there. Although we still think we're not quite good enough for top 2 and will need more additions.

In past seasons we've brought in Championship players who have fallen out of favour at their clubs or we've even brought in PL rejects but surprisingly most of our players from the leagues above have struggled in league 1.

So this season the new manager has gone for the best/ better players from league 1.

I'm confident we'll do better than last season when we lost our first match 0-4 away at Gillingham.

I'll go for
Bolton 1 Blades 1
and I'll be reasonably happy not to lose, a nice steady start.

 

[Hairy Otter]

I'll be happy with a clean sheet, which barely ever looked likely under Adkins.

If that gives us a point, I'll take that now. But if we can keep things tight and make a few chances of our own, I'm optimistic that Sharp and Clarke can put one away.

Really chuffed that the fans are turning out in force for Wilder's first game in charge, should be a cracking atmosphere. Any idea on the likely crowd? Would expect around 16,000 once we sell the rest of the 4,300 allocation.

 

[Muzzle]

Don't know about the crowd, we've had too many broken promises and awful seasons, if the start fairly well than crowds will increase rapidly, as we've sold 11,000 season tickets, you probably aren't too far away

 

[blademan89]

4284 sell out from us which basically means we will lose without scoring. I'm missing it which I'm a bit gutted about but I'm sure lanzarote will be the better option in the end. Anyway utb let's get off to a flyer

 

[Sheffsteel]

Blademan,

It is a strange fact for SU that generally the more Blades in attendance and the more important the match then the worse we seem to play and when we do play well we seem to have bad luck.

Whereas meaningless matches where no Blades are that interested we play really well.

Also agree when ever we take a large following anywhere we almost always fail to score. It's as though the nerves and negativity from the fans always get to the players.

 

[blade1889]

Very strong first 20/25 for us but then went stale, should've been leading comfortably by then though. Don't think Bolton are worth their lead. Poor defending to head it straight to Spearing but a great finish.

 

[blademan89]

Same old story glad I'm fucking abroad

 

[blade1889]

Never got going 2nd half, can't imagine Wilder will be happy with what seemed like a lack of effort.

Hussey - very poor debut, awful set-pieces and sloppy passes
O'Connell and Wilson - seemed solid enough
Fleck - good game, really good passing
Duffy - decent game, very involved in our early bright spell
Clarke - got ragged all over but should've scored early on

 

[Muzzle]

First 20-25 mins you were really all over us and you had about 4 chances to score and didn't, we then scored and the game sort of petered out after that. Think you had 3 chances skim across the face of the goal but no one was following up, we looked a bit scred at first but came back into the game. Fair result would hav ebeen a draw but i'll take the win with thanks