Match Thread Bolton Wanderers (away) - Carabao (League) Cup

I'm not quite understanding how this works...

Will we therefore find out who we face in round two... And who will MAY face in round three, should we win our next game?

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08ph584

Stuart interview from 18:30 onwards, well worth a listen!

 

The Round Two draw is unseeded and will remain regionalised with northern and southern sections.

Upon its conclusion, the Round Three draw will then take place with each tie given a number in the order that they came out in the Round Two draw.

Fixtures will then be subject to another unseeded draw on an either/or basis, alongside the seven Premier League clubs competing in Europe who enter at this stage.

Having the draws conducted together will enable the EFL, clubs and broadcasters to plan with additional clarity and certainty over a busy period of fixtures whilst supporters are unable to attend fixtures.

Joining the Carabao Cup at the second-round stage are the 13 Premier League clubs who are not competing in Europe in the 2020/21 season.

These include Everton, West Ham and Wolverhampton Wanderers in addition to Sky Bet Championship sides Bournemouth and Watford.

The remaining clubs - Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Leicester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal - will join in Round Three.

 

Fair summary mate, I think you mean Reece Burke rather than Rhy's Burke, we certainly don't want him to change that side of his game, I'm with you with regards French pit in a decent performance and deserves another run out at Donny on Tuesday night.
Sent you a PM if your interested.

 

Knowing our luck we’ll get to the third round and draw Man United at Old Trafford behind closed doors!

 

Enjoyed that, and good to see us back on the pitch after so long.

French really impressed me today, hopefully a sign of things to come. Other mentions for Watt, Staunton and Novak who I thought have very good games. Everyone else was sold as well and played their part.

Bolton has plenty of the ball, but about 80% of their possession was in the first two thirds of the pitch. They reminded me of England passing it round the back, keeping the ball for the sake of it. Soft goal to concede other than they offered little.

Staunton played very well, naive for their goal but he’s a young lad, they’ll make mistakes and it was probably the biggest game of his career to date. Watt complimented Cooke well allowing him to get forward and we looked more direct in CM instead of just slow passing like we often did with Reeves, Akpan etc.

Early days, can’t get carried away but great to see our team win again.

 

This is what we’ve missed for so many seasons. Already today there were so many more positive signs of confidence to knock the ball around and create space, something i haven’t seen us do for seasons.

Not getting carried away, however it’s nice to enjoy a victory that had some hard work behind it.

 

Can't get carried away about today. Those that don't know about football will but most on here will understand that the win today is just massive for the confidence but overall it changes nothing. We still have a poor squad currently and we have work to do on & off the pitch.

 

But what would you have posted if we had been beaten? You would have got carried away with all the usual guff you come out with.

 

Do you think the squad is any stronger or weaker than last season? Based on what you watched today was it an improvement on the average performances of last season?

Im getting far from carried away and 100% agree today’s win is nothing other than a shot of confidence. That said, there were some passages of play today that were breath of fresh air versus the dross weve seen for the past two seasons. At least it’s an indication we might be starting to move in the right direction.

 

I repeat I said we would win today 3-1. I can't take any results in the cup matches today seriously.

 

On paper the squad is significantly worse. On paper this time last year we had done probably the best transfer business of anyone in the league. We all know though how painful last season was at times even when we were in the autos.

Today was far and away better than anything we saw last season. Barring the brief bit of form we hit in Dec 2018, that is genuinely the best I have seen us play and the most enjoyable game to watch since early 2017/18 season when McCall had us at the top end of Lg1. Really that shows how bad the last 2/3 years have been as we weren't even that good today and I feel there is more to come.

Not getting carried away, but really looking forward to the league kicking off next week now

 

Well it's a nice start.

Neither listened to nor watched the game, so obviously not going to break it down, but we fielded a side some 'feared' we might have to field (with a few inexperienced players (rather than big name signings), and relying on Clarke/Novak/Guthrie), and we still beat one of the fancied sides.

Two points:

1) It's INCREDIBLY naive to simply assume Bolton have assembled a good, balanced side and will challenge. They might have, they might have made a pig's ear of it. Too early to say.

2) These are some bizarre times, and I still do not see many sides in L2 that have DEFINITELY got a much better squad than we have already.

It goes without seeing we need to see how things go from here, but at the minute there's no evidence we're behind like the preseason panickers are saying. Everybody got done over, with the possible exception of richer sides - I can only think of Salford, and they were bang average last year?

 

Pleased for Stuart today and the players, but....,

why does he take criticism so personally? During the interview he mentioned what the reaction would’ve been had we lost. Almost having a pop at fans who dare to question the recruitment and who’ve seen the continual demise of the club over the last 3 or so years.
Why not say, he hopes to win them round by putting in the kind of performance we saw today on a regular basis. It’s almost as if, like him and you’re ok, criticise him and you can do one.

He’s going to be scrutinised, that’s the nature of the beast unfortunately.

 

Exactly.

We're all City fans, so obviously we tend to over analyse all things Bradford City.

But some of us have been saying it for a while, if we analysed all these other sides there is literally nothing suggesting they're going to be any better prepared.

I've seen some ludicrous predictions banded about - no higher than 9th, midtable, whatever.

Based on what? Based on all known data about Bradford City, but not one of those predictors would be able to name 7, 8, 9, 10, or more clubs that will definitely finish higher.

Nobody is in a position to do that this season.

 

Ay up mate

How you feeling, hopefully better today after your ridiculous comment to me yesterday.

Winning at Bolton should put a smile of your boat race

 

I couldn't name 7 that would "definitely" finish higher that us last year either? Or 22 the year before. If we could we'd all be rich.

I'm not sure how not being able to tell the future but simply offering your opinion makes it "ludicrous" simply because you don't agree.