Bolton under Owen Coyle

yahoo_moe

It seems to be fairly widely accepted that Owen Coyle is transforming Bolton into a better passing, 'footballing' side. It gets mentioned on TV a bit and yesterday's Tribune even had an article on the improving standard of football so far in this year's Premier League, with Bolton given as a key example.

I don't see it myself though - what do others think?

• In the Tribune article, they listed the average number of passes attempted by each side. Bolton were 19th of 20 last year, 18th so far this year (excl. this weekend's matches).
• This year, their average was 244, compared to 212 last year. The average across all teams so far this year was about 346, with about the same number of teams above and below that average figure (so it's a fair comparison).
• I'd a quick look at their Chalkboards for this season and they seem to complete about 75% of the passes they attempt. As a guide, that's better than Blackburn who complete 63% or something but Arsenal completed 83% the other day against West Brom without even playing well.

8-10

yahoo_moe wrote: »

• I'd a quick look at their Chalkboards for this season and they seem to complete about 75% of the passes they attempt. As a guide, that's better than Blackburn who complete 63% or something but Arsenal completed 83% the other day against West Brom without even playing well.

If I were Bolton, and those were the comparitive averages for Arsenal and Blackburn, I'd be pretty satisfied with that. Even without the comparison 75% sounds good.

Xavi6

I like that they're now playing two up top in home games.

cson

Remember that Bolton have played Arsenal and Villa in that and wouldn't have seen to much of the ball to pass it.

Elmander and Petrov were great buys imo. They'll stay up comfortably in the mid table never going anyway fast region.

Neil3030

yahoo_moe wrote: »

• In the Tribune article, they listed the average number of passes attempted by each side. Bolton were 19th of 20 last year, 18th so far this year (excl. this weekend's matches).

That stat only tells half the story; you'd need to look at the amount of time both they as a team and their individual players are spending in possession of the ball to put their number-of-passes-attempted in context.

/my2c.

yahoo_moe

Neil3030 wrote: »

That stat only tells half the story

Absolutely, but I wasn't going to hunt all that out I just gave the stats from the article for a bit of background really - I'm more interested in people's gut reaction. I know I don't like Bolton so I wasn't sure how fair I was being.

Xavi6 wrote:

I like that they're now playing two up top in home games.

That's more about their approach to the game though - i.e. attacking vs. defensive mindset. I'm talking about the 'quality' of their play as people would say.

DB10

They don't have the players I don't think.

No footballing side can play without a decent CM. Muamba there is a disgraceful passer.

orourkeda

Isnt football supposed to be about playing to your players strengths rather than trying to gain irrelevant plaudits.

~Rebel~

They're trying to play a bit at least. They don't have the players to quite play proper football throughout the park, but their ethos at least has changed.

Down the centre they're still a fairly lowest common denominator team, but once they spread the ball wide and then come centre in the final third, they're actually pretty good to watch. This can only improve. If they had someone like Danny Murphy or Andy Reid in the middle, it would bring them on another level I think. Petrov has already made a big difference to them.

Mr.Nice Guy

They're actually playing quite similar to the way Trap wants Ireland to play. Two workmanlike players in the centre in Holden and Muamba who don't do anything fancy. Instead the attacking flair comes from the wings through Petrov and Lee who I think are both very good players (Lee more so imo). Up front Davies plays the Kevin Doyle role of winning the ball whilst Elmander does the Keane role of missing the chances.

It makes me think if Trap does move on that Coyle could be a good successor, assuming the plan was to keep this type of system going, and seeing as he has connections to the team through his couple of caps.

Overall I think Coyle is doing a nice job. When they had Wilshere they had a bit more creativity in the centre, but they should still be OK in terms of survival without him I would say.

eagle eye

Every team in the Premier League is footballing side imo.

daithijjj

They lack something in the centre of the pitch but imo, in lee they have a very good player, a great crosser of the ball for two big guys in elmander and davies. Petrov is starting to find his feet also.