Tamworthram

I always made sure I was standing in front of one the barriers to avoid getting crushed (obviously not to the same degree as those poor individuals at Hillsborough but still uncomfortable) if/when Derby scored. The only way I could see traditional terracing ever working and being acceptable again is if the terrace was divided into relatively small pens and the people entering each pen is strictly controlled based on the ticket you've purchased. I'm not sure how easy that would be to implement.

Do you actually watch any football and understand the game or are your opinions and conclusions based purely of stats? Stats are interesting and can help to analyse a game but there is far more to the sport than just that. I've agreed that Bolton, on the whole, played the better football and clearly had the better chances and more of them but to describe our performance as so bad that it could be described as a stinker and that of a relegation team is frankly laughable. Of course we'll never know but I'd hazard a guess that if you asked everyone that attended the game (including the Bolton fans) + everyone who watched it live on RamsTV (as well as what Bolton supporters may have been able to watch it on) + everyone else that has only been able to watch the extended highlights, you'd be hard pressed to reach double figures for the number of people that would describe our performance in such a damning way.

Take another look at the highlights. “The keeper” wasn’t “beat”. Wildsmith was right underneath it and pulled his arms down as he could see it wasn’t going in under the bar.

So, a hard fought win against a fellow promotion rival, only 1 point behind us, is a stinker and relegation candidate type of performance? Comedy gold. What on earth do you mean “Bolton are by all accounts a +1.5 side, maybe a +2”? And by who’s account?

Any such campaigning would be a waste of time and energy. It’s not going to happen anytime soon. Whilst still not ideal, the only half baked solution I can think of is to a) extend safe standing to more areas of the ground (including areas available to non season ticket holders) and b) enforce sitting down in none safe seating areas. Good luck to the stewards on the second point especially at away games.

CBT is an odd one. Injured as soon as he arrives, when he’s been fit he hasn’t had a great deal of game time and when he has played I haven’t seen him make much of an impact (admittedly, more often than not he’s not been on the pitch long enough). Like you, I’m waiting to see what he can do and why he was PW’s number one target. Perhaps our current injuries challenges will give him the opportunity but I’m not sure in what position or what formation.

Pompey drew at our place.

That particular “hitting the bar” wasn’t as close as you can get to a goal. It bounced on the top of the bar so it wasn’t heading into the goal.

Whilst technically correct, to say they hit the bar is a tad deceptive. If I remember correctly, it bounced on the top of the cross bar. Yes Bolton played the better football on the whole, yes they created the best chances and we created very few of note but to describe it as “a stinker” is just beyond belief.

I knew as soon as you mentioned “deserved” that @ap04 would give you a clapping hand. 😀 Seriously though, yes you created the better chances and, on the whole, played the better football. BUT, you failed to score (as you say, either due to some poor finishing or great goal keeping) whereas we did. Therefore, you “deserved” to lose. Maybe our goal would have been ruled out if we had VAR (maybe not though given his arm wasn’t in an unnatural position and the ball was heading into the empty net anyway I’m not sure you could say he “scored” the goal) But, if that is your only case for not deserving to lose, would you concede that we didn’t deserve to lose at your place given the foul for your penalty was outside the box (just) and Wildsmith shouldn’t have been sent off?

Conversely though, haven’t teams like Pompey and Bolton (and to a lesser extent Barnsley and Posh) had a chance to strengthen and build on their achievements last season and therefore pose more of a challenge? whoever goes up, unless they have cheated or had massively more than “their fair share” of dodgy referee decision, deserves to go up.

Oops, good spot. Got to give them a chance though to keep it interesting. 😀

Quite possibly the case UNLESS they really do announce the attendance as tickets sold and not bums on seats. I think even the least intelligent understand the difference between "will", "should" or could", but some may use the wrong, pretty basic, words in error. That's why I say "unless he meant to say "should" rather than "will"". At the end of the day though, it matters not. We're a well supported team even if the announced attendance is higher than those actually attending.

But they still have to play Stevenage, Blackpool, Barnsley and Portsmouth away from home. Their PPG away from home is 2.17. They’ll do extremely well to maintain that let alone lift to 2.4.

He has been.

What a bizarre analogy that cannot be compared to football in the slightest. Since when has an A+ been a fail whilst a B is a fail? Why would you rate an A the same as a D? other than in your random "rule". But, in order to humour you, student A performed better on the day for one exam whilst student B performed better in the other four. It's obviously impossible to know if either student was lucky or unlucky without know exactly what happened on the day of each exam. Maybe one student, by chance, had spent more time studying the topics that came up in the exam, maybe one student was unfairly distracted by something. A bit of a silly question. I don't know what point you are trying to make or if my answer fits with your expectation. All I know is that Bolton didn't fail to score due to something totally out of the control of either them or Derby, and therefore, wasn't anything to do with luck. They played better and had the better chances but they failed to score because their efforts weren't quite good enough and/or our keeper played very well.

I think you’re completely missing my point. Yes it was pretty full and the figure he gave probably wasn’t far off but how can he say “it WILL be…….” before most of us had gone through the turnstiles? It’s no big deal if the attendance they announce is actually tickets sold rather than actual bums on seats. I was just trying to put to bed the speculation as to which is used.

It was never going to be a classic was it? Too much at stake and two sides that, by and large, cancelled each other out.

It doesn’t matter. We weren’t “lucky” today. Overall, Bolton played the better football and had the better chances but the reason they lost is because they weren’t good enough on the day and because Wildsmith had a very good game. Wildsmith did what he’s paid to do and did it very well and Bolton didn’t do enough to get a goal (or two). That’s not luck.

Not as massive as it would have been had we not won today.

Absolutely. My man of the match

How could he have known what the “attendance” was in advance then? As it was, I was say it was pretty accurate but he couldn’t have known that when he said the attendance “will be”.

This from DD proves beyond doubt then that they do include season ticket sales in the attendance regardless of whether they attend or not unless he meant to say "should" rather than "will".

Mmm. Not sure why that would appeal to you. 😀

An ineffective way of protesting will have caused her and most likely her family some big problems. ☹️