Finally! The Ginger Fool (in my head I'm using a much harsher word) is gone! I had honestly got to the point where I believed Gartside would never fire him, but, finally, he has. It would have been difficult, even for Phil Gartside, who I'm pretty sure listens to what the fans say and then does the exact opposite, to ignore the chants of the fans at the Hull match. I was there myself and participated, shouting all kinds of supremely unladylike abuse. It was quite extaordinary the hate eminating from the Wanderers fans, my father, who has been attending matches for about 50 years, says he has never seen anything like it.
Can you imagine upwards of 18,000 people all calling you a wanker? I do feel a bit sorry for him actually, and were it me I probably would've broken down and cried right there in the technical area, but it must be said he earnwed it. What was looking like an incredibly succesful match changed at half-time, when Bolton appeared to lose spirit. Even Super Kevin Davies stopped chasing everything down. Then to seal the loss of 2 points Megson pulled off Klasnic and put on Gavin McCann, a move that was summarized by the bloke behind me to his American cousin(?) as "Well we've just taken off our best striker and put on the worst player ever made." Now I can understand that Klasnic can't play the whole game effectively and probably would've taken him off myself. But put on Gavin McCann? I'd sooner put on Lofty the Lion, our faithful mascot.
Gavin McCann's complete lackof talent aside, this was a defensive move. Which was absolutely stupid. The score was 2-1 at the time, and it almost never works to sit on a one goal lead. Even Manchester United (back when they still had defenders) couldn't do it. It sends all the wrong psychological signals to both teams and invariably leads to a conceded goal. It is also incredibly stupid to do this if you have Bolton's defensive record, which we all know is crap.
I think it was that horrible move which really sealed Megson's fate. Now all we have to do is keep our fingers crossed for Mark Hughes, who I'm sure is out to repair his image a bit. This is all I can say for now, but I'll be back with regularity again on January 7th. Until then