Mick

8 points would have had us third or possibly second depending on goal difference.

More teams have taken points off Villa and Everton than haven't, Spurs have drawn one more game than Derby and have won the same number as them.

Could Bolton defend draws?

I've just looked at the league table and noticed we've played 1 team in the top 7, we lost. We're currently 8th, I wonder where we'll be once the balance between playing shite teams and playing good teams is evened out?

Derby have won 1 drawn 3.

I doubt Viduka would have made much difference in either game because the service to the forwards was crap in both, I don't think Shearer at his best would have made a difference.

Can anybody remember when Roeder first became manager and we played Bolton at home and we beat them 3-1? Newcastle playing away reminds me of that side we played that day.

You're hard work, our forwards were not given anything to work with. We did have players out of position and we didn't need to do that because we have players who are capable of beating Reading, we just didn't use them from the start.

I wouldn't have changed the team we put out on Monday, I'd have gone at Reading like you've suggested instead of narrowing our game and allowing them to come at us. I'd have used Owen and Martins to really have a go at the Reading defence instead of having them chasing lost causes and coming deep looking for scraps.

Well said Parky, I didn't think you were capable of that, sorry.

I agreed with most of that but you lost it with the last line, we played forwards today who were good enough to piss all over Reading, we lost it because we didn't bring them into the game, getting 2 forward players will not change that.

A year ago you thought we should get more forwards instead of defenders, today we had good forwards but didn't use them. It doesn't matter who you play up front if you don't give them the ball in the danger area.

We played better when we brought on some width.

blueyes.gif I couldn't argue with that.

You brought him into it.

You probably think that we need more forwards, I'm sure that was what you were saying last year. A year ago we had Rossi and Duff up front, today we had Martins and Owen but didn't get the best out of them because of the way the team was set out, not because of who played up front.

What was our problem a year ago?

I've seen your reply to Bagio, you're all about point scoring on here regardless of the facts. Nobody is claiming that our defensive record has improved but some can see the problem with the tactics, you can't.

Agreed, it's the tactics that's wrong now, not the players in defence.

I agree that we should be trying to keep a clean sheet, I just don't think we should disrupt the team against Reading to attempt to do that. I also think that Allardyce does think that keeping a clean sheet is more important than scoring, he's virtually said it in the quotes I've seen.

Pointless question, you know the answer.

Who said Allardyce would change a winning home team for away games?

The point about 20 games since we've kept a clean sheet proves that it's not as important as scoring, we've won in those 20 games without keeping the score down to zero. Keeping a clean sheet gets you 1 point, scoring more than the opposition gets you 3.