The brutal truth for Bolton is that almost any investor seriously looking at them is going to be dodgy to some degree. What smart businessman is going to look at Bolton, in their current state, and say "yeah, that looks like something I want to sink some cash into" ? There is no obvious upside to putting any money into Bolton, unless it involves something on the side which will almost certainly not benefit the football club.

According to TransferMarkt Adarabioyo played CB 21 times, RB 14 times and LB once. So a bit of a utility man. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/tosin-adarabioyo/leistungsdaten/spieler/258878/plus/0?saison=2018 Squad: 41, Starting eleven: 21, Substituted in: 8, On the bench: 12, Suspended: 0, Injured: 0 I think suggesting people are unhappy with Adarabioyo or Johnson is missing the point though. I haven't seen many people say they are unhappy with either signing in isolation, it's more that we haven't signed any defender who can be identified as a definite first teamer, and we've sold our first choice goalkeeper and look set to replace him with a Brighton loanee who doesn't appear to be significantly if any better than the player we just let go. I'm not convinced our first team is significantly stronger than it was last season as it stands. The squad overall, yes, I think the likes of Johnson, Adarabioyo, Downing and Gallagher do give us a stronger squad in general. Not sure it's going to mean much if our defence is still consistantly leaking goals though.

I'm not going to panic just yet, I'm really, really hoping that we are just keeping a couple of deals hidden and we will all be pleasantly surprised by the time the window shuts. If it closes and Walton & Tosin are our only defensive reinforcements I will be extremely disappointed though. My fear is that Mowbray sees Lenihan, Mulgrew, Williams, Nyambe and Tosin as five available CB options and that is more than enough. Meanwhile he sees Bell, Williams and Downing as adequete LB/LWB options and Bennett, Nyambe and Travis as adequete RB/RWB choices. Personally I don't think there is anywhere near enough quality there to realistically push for the top six. Yeah, but are we going to be starting him ahead of the regulars? That doesn't fit into how Mowbray traditionally operates. It could be months before the lad even gets a shot in the first team ahead of the established players, unless Lenihan or Mulgrew get injured.

Assumedly so, although Walton for Raya is essentially a like-for-like except we don't own the player, and the City lad will presumably be a bench option as I don't see him starting ahead of Bennett/Nyambe, Mulgrew or Lenihan. Still in desperate need of strengthening the back four and running out of time to do it. Think this might be our lot. Maybe one more player with an eye on retirement to fulfil the "experienced" CB criteria. Wouldn't rule out spending more money on a midfielder/striker we don't need either.

Have to assume Pedro means Waggott, etc, as it wouldn't make sense with Venky's as from the moment they took over horrendous amounts of money began funneling out of the club towards SEM and parties associated with them. There was obviously something badly wrong around the 15/16 period as we were suddenly having severe cash flow problems, which we didn't have even at the worst of times during the Jerome Anderson/SEM era (aside from the £10m Barclays loan incident, although even then there was never any missed payments for wages, emergency loans being taken out, etc). That all seems to have been cleaned up for the most part, and now we're essentially back to where we were before with budgets that change depending on the date, targets being missed for reasons unknown and the manager flying out to India on a semi-regular basis to discuss financial obligations even though that should really be solely down to Waggott and the appropriate board members. I think we're likely in a better place in terms of financial transperency than we were a few years ago, but the underlying problems with how the owners run the club remain and continue to hinder us. Appreciate that they're keeping the lights on, etc, but my concern is what happens if and when they finally decide they've had enough. The only person trying to build any kind of structure that benefits the club long-term is an employee who could be gone by Christmas.

Agreed, listening to Bassini he seems like he's not all there. He did an interview on SSN not too long ago and was barely able to form coherent sentences at times. It's all rather odd.

12 days until our first match of the season. No first team goalkeeper, no defensive reinforcements. The only signings on the horizon a loan goalie arguably no better than Raya and a City youngster on loan. And even those are dragging for unknown reasons. Worrying times.

Bennett, Mulgrew, Evans, Graham, Williams and assumedly now Gallagher still a major part of the starting 11 so... is it really?

Seems like 50% of the forum has "sources" at the club these days so on the surface there's more leaks than ever! Or more people talking shit than ever. Might be that one actually.

I am amused by the attempts to paint Mowbray's musings as some kind of highly intelligent ploy to sucker other clubs and managers into giving us their players on the cheap. Because other clubs would totally not see through that, only a small section of our fanbase. Makes sense. Or Mowbray is finding himself unable to bring in the players he wanted and is changing his position on an almost weekly basis to justify what has so far been a somewhat baffling transfer window. I mean, it isn't that dissimilar to what happened last summer - the only question is who will be our deadline day prize this year? Can't be much worse than last year's catch.

WBA gave themselves an automatic handicap last season by not appointing a proper manager. Fulham are doing the same this year and I expect similar if not worse results. Cardiff have got Warnock at the helm so they will almost certainly be there or thereabouts. Not sure how Huddersfield will do. Could be right up there, but conversely could just as easily end up in mid table purgatory. My gut says it'll be purgatory.

Yeah another striker, why not. If Graham, Gallagher, Armstrong, Brereton, Samuel and Nuttall all get injured we won't have anyone to play in that one position up top so better to be safe than sorry.

Jason Steele is at Brighton. Doesn't mean anything unless you're no1.

Assume the two signings tomorrow are that City lad, and possibly Foderingham? Or maybe the target Bbrovers has been hearing about. Edit: Just read the article and looks like it's the City lad and Walton.

The club's hierarchy not telling fans the whole truth? Well knock me down with a feather.

Jeez, high emotions on here tonight! All Mowbray's fault imo. Buy a bloody goalkeeper already!

You have to have pretty thick skin to post on here in general at the moment, let alone if you're claiming to post ITK info. Chin up @Bbrovers2288, it's just pixels on a screen at the end of the day. I fear if you stop posting we'll end up back at the Brereton Flex arguments, and I'm not sure I can handle that.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11672/11765942/bolton-doubtful-for-start-of-season-says-pfa-chief-executive-gordon-taylor Gordon Taylor suggesting Bolton may not be able to start the season. Hard to remember another club being in this much trouble two weeks before the season begins.

This happened more than once to Mulgrew in League 1 as well, the difference being we weren't punished for it as often due to the overall quality of the teams we were up against. The warning signs have been there for some time with Charlie as far as his defensive weaknesses are concerned, they just came to a head last season when we were getting punished repeatedly for mistakes across the entire back four, with Mulgrew being one of the more regular culprits. If we start the season with Mulgrew as first choice CB then this window has been a failure. Also think it's fair to say almost everybody expected a new GK to be here by now, so little wonder there's some concern brewing.

If we line up with Leutwiler, Mulgrew, Bennett and Evans in the starting 11 Mowbray should be sacked before the game even kicks off. That aside, I'll wait until I know who we've got in before predicting a scoreline.

What's funny is that a lot of people actually don't know what period Millennial applies to. They assume because of the name it's the post-2000 generation, even though that is generally classified as Gen Z. A lot of people I've seen use Millenial derogatorily are by definition Millenials themselves! I believe it encompasses anyone born between 1981-1996. In this instance it wouldn't surprise me if, for once, the owners are not the problem. Mowbray assumedly knows his budget and was able to get SG's £5m transfer over the line without any obvious problems. We don't know if he has restrictions on how he can use his budget (eg. more available for young attacking players) but you have to assume he knows what he has to work with. More than likely we've dawdled too long on targets, other clubs have registered an interest and the process has slowed down as a result - especially if other clubs can offer better wages than us. It's ideally why you have a replacement pretty much lined up before letting a first teamer with no obvious replacement in the squad go.

It's always been there, just more prominent than ever nowadays due to the vast outreach of social media. Back in the 2000s there was no Twitter or Instagram for everybody to vent their opinions. At best you had the early incarnation of Facebook and MySpace which were effectively closed communities, much like forums. Increased connectivity and visibility of the general public just shows how little people are interested in debate, they are mainly just concerned with proving themselves right. I think it's always been like that though. Anyway, that's going way off topic so... experienced GK and CB ASAP please Tony.

At this rate Bolton will do well to start the season, let alone avoid relegation. They'll start the season with Jason Lowe surrounded by the u18 squad and an empty stadium. Although if the stadium isn't cleared for health & safety reasons. as happened many times last season, they may not even be able to play at all.

Forums tend to be where the more hardcore fans end up, rather than casual fans. I don't think it's so much "glass half empty types" as fans who are by and large looking at the finer details and long-term outlook as opposed to taking things as they come and not getting overly invested in what is happening outside of match day, as the more casual fans tend to do. I imagine the people on here know far more about what happened with Jerome Anderson, SEM, Shebby Singh, our cash flow issues from 15/16, etc than the vast majority of those who attend Ewood and likely don't know or care about any of that. It's inevitable that as a result many of the opinions and perspectives on here will skewer significantly towards the more pessimistic/cautious side of the fence.

There is absolutely nothing to suggest our manager or coaches are improving our defence in any way, and it's been two and a half years under TM now. If you're hanging your hat on that I fear you are in for some serious disappointment.