On my way home

[Romford Hoop]

2 points thrown away, poor finishing failed to put away a poor Bolton team who were fairly useless.

Kone and Vale missed easy chances, Saito should have had a penalty and various players scuffed their shots, their keeper pulled off a couple of decent saves.
This squad if they stay fit could do well, but really have to bury their chances, finishing is woeful.

[LordLoftus]

Vales chance wasn't easy

[Romford Hoop]

Disagree, had the whole goal to head it in.

[Darkranger]

2 points thrown away, poor finishing failed to put away a poor Bolton team who were fairly useless.

Kone and Vale missed easy chances, Saito should have had a penalty and various players scuffed their shots, their keeper pulled off a couple of decent saves.
This squad if they stay fit could do well, but really have to bury their chances, finishing is woeful.

Whilst I agree about our finishing I thought Bolton were very solid in the central defensive area.
2 points dropped but a good atmosphere and a day in the sun at home.

[3London]

We will play a lot worse than that and win games this season.

we played really well just missed that final part!

definitely a pen on koki!

last season we put 6 past Portsmouth with on 9 touches in the penalty box today we had 40 touches in the box 17 shots 9 on target and get 0.

funny old game!

[72bus]

Lackluster up front especially kone , poku , Smyth and saito hang on to the ball for to long , cross it early..... plenty of effort no cutting edge

[Abseits]

Vale has no composure in final third. Same old story every year... Come down to the level of opponents and not taking care of business.

Not happy with Stephane today. Didn't seem to meaningfully change anything during the 90mins - seemed content to let us huff and puff all game. All the subs were basically like for like and didn't change the fundamental shape, formation, approach or tempo. Where was the big push and urgency in the last 15 mins or so? Far too much tippy-tappy walking football allowed Bolton to just sit-in and soak it up.

Lastly, that's the quietist most subdued full-house I've been in at LR for years. Indicative of the lack of oomph in our play I reckon.

[3London]

Vale has no composure in final third. Same old story every year... Come down to the level of opponents and not taking care of business.

Not happy with Stephane today. Didn't seem to meaningfully change anything during the 90mins - seemed content to let us huff and puff all game. All the subs were basically like for like and didn't change the fundamental shape, formation, approach or tempo. Where was the big push and urgency in the last 15 mins or so? Far too much tippy-tappy walking football allowed Bolton to just sit-in and soak it up.

Lastly, that's the quietist most subdued full-house I've been in at LR for years. Indicative of the lack of oomph in our play I reckon.

I think i might have been at a different game!

We played really well today ..the Bolton Manager in his interview said our attacking game was superb which at times it was. Walking football? we didn't walk once! We attacked down both flanks rather than just one .. denied a stone wall penalty when saito kept hold of it for too long and went past 2 players in the penalty box and was brought down ..the ref gave a really weak free kick in the pen box later when a defender fell over under far less of a challenge.

The Atmosphere was pretty good. As the crowd responded to our attacks

How you can say we had no oomph in our play when we had 17 shots 9 on target 40 touches in the opposition box.

Last we we got the rub of the green with 3 scrappy slightly fortunate goals this week we didn't. Had we drawn last week and won today we would all be happy.

Yes its frustrating we didn't win and bolton got what they came for.

Tactically they were much tighter in the second half sat deep and hoped to catch us on the break.

Last season we would have lost that 0-1

we gave them nothing.

Onwards!

[cross it Dave]

Disagree, had the whole goal to head it in.

He would have scored if he headed to his right

[SheepRanger]

I didn't see Lamptey do any spectacular or wrong, he didn't really catch my eye.

Any thoughts on his performance?

[Stanfan]

Brilliant game where everyone was good. Shame we didn’t score but this is football where chances are missed. Ball just didn’t drop kindly from rebounds and ref was not wanting to see penalties and only did the 5 second stuff 2 or 3 times as he couldn’t keep up

[Abseits]

I didn't see Lamptey do any spectacular or wrong, he didn't really catch my eye.

Any thoughts on his performance?

You've nailed it really. Thing is, you could apply that verdict to the whole team... It's why we didn't win .

[3London]

I didn't see Lamptey do any spectacular or wrong, he didn't really catch my eye.

Any thoughts on his performance?

Considering the guy has hardly played any competitive games for 2 years and wasn’t expected to play much before September I thought he did ok . It will take a few games to get him up to anything like match sharp.

[SheepRanger]

Considering the guy has hardly played any competitive games for 2 years and wasn’t expected to play much before September I thought he did ok . It will take a few games to get him up to anything like match sharp.

Occasional cameos would be great. I thought Mbengue was solid today, so theres no need to rush him back.

[LordLoftus]

Reading the two threads I must of been watching a different game.
It was another one we could of scored three. The team played perfectly, just a couple of individual moments could have gone better and the result would of been drastically different.

Kone - I'm not delighted with him either as our first choice when focused on his overall game, I think him and Dunne are the weak spots for how we want to play as a team. But he's miles better than weve had in a long time and you have to get into the right position to score those chances and the team have actually created those chances for him on multiple occasions today. If he keeps getting into those spots and the team keep being creative he should score a bag full this year.

Mbengue - has developed into a great RB over these past two games. The challenge of having Lamptey (is that his name) as competition seems to be doing great for him so far. He's basically like a new signing.

Lamptey (?) - was solid, but kept looking to come in rather than be our outside RB. If that's his style of play I'm not 100% sure what our team structure is like in those moments as it felt like we lost a step down the right when he came on. Too soon to tell though. Either that's his style or the manager saw something and that was the instructions. I just didn't see the exploit there.

The LB from Sunderland (Crikin?) looked good, real good. Went on the overlap, created pressure, got to balls I didn't think he would. First impressions are solid.

Chair, Smyth, Vale, Ronnie, JCS, all had a good game.