Coyle has profited a degree of goodwill from the press for a perceived change in the club’s style of football. This is quite clearly a concerted PR effort, for it simply has no basis in fact. Bolton now are still the same Bolton of old, except Coyle’s Bolton have acquired an undeniable soft underbelly of late, with the team already shipping 21 goals in their opening 7 league games this season as they are rooted to the bottom of the table in what now constitutes the club’s worst start to a season in 109 years.
Many will point to the tough fixture list Bolton have had so far, having played Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool already, but you have to play everybody at some point and this terrible run of form backdates to last season whereupon a capitulation to Stoke 5-0 at Wembley they lost their last 5 league games against Fulham, Blackburn, Bolton, Blackpool and Man City. A telling fact – Gary Megson and Sammie Lee were both
sacked before Christmas after better starts than Coyle has had this season. He may talk a good game, but he could, along with Alex McLeish, face the rather unenviable prospect of having managed 2 relegated teams in 3 seasons on his CV.
Roy Hodgson –
Is it too early for Hodgson to be considered under pressure? A sloppy start to the season has already seen them lose 4 of their opening 7 games. Since their return to the top flight, the words West Brom have hardly been synonymous with good defending – but it’s been their apparent lack of cutting edge up top this term that has been the most worrying aspect of their play.
While last season they scored an impressive 56 league, only four less than moneybags Man City, so far this season they’ve scored just 5 in 7 games, with Hodgson’s stubborn refusal for the most part to start with two up front often cited as a reason. This season’s relegation battle is likely to involve between 8-10 teams, a side with the resources of West Brom cannot afford a slow start to proceedings.
Neil Warnock –
QPR are a strange beast. Neil Warnock’s men are still without a win on home soil in three attempts and they’ve been hammered twice already, 4-0 on the opening day to Bolton at home and 6-0 away at Fulham last weekend.
The new recruits such as Joey Barton, Luka Young and Shaun Wright-Phillips were certainly most welcome in propping up and beefing out what was a deeply average Championship squad in both size and quality. Still, the worry remains that their inconsistency over the course of a long campaign could prove their undoing. They also appear to lack a genuine finisher of proven Premier League quality with Jay Bothroyd having found the transition difficult so far.
Warnock will feel the need to impress the club’s new owners in a bid to finally put to bed rumours of his departure. With a tricky run of games after their next fixture against Blackburn (H) coming up – Chelsea (H), Spurs (A), Man City (H) – QPR will need to rediscover the comforts of home, otherwise they could be this season’s Blackpool; a side hampered in their efforts to avoid the drop by poor home form. He may not be under any undue pressure at the moment, but that could all quickly change inside a month or so for Warnock. Their next fixture against Blackburn could be one of the season’s first genuine six-pointers, with the potential fate of both managers and their future ambitions riding on a positive result.
Written by James McManus for FootballFancast.com. You can follow me on Twitter @JamesMcManus1
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The mans a muppet get rid asap.