After their emphatic opening day victory at Loftus Road, Bolton have struggled to gain any sort of momentum to their Premier League campaign, languishing in and around the bottom three. They showed a lot of promise with 4 goals on their first away trip of the season, and the spirited performance against Manchester City a week later.
But since then it had largely been underachievement and inconsistency for Owen Coyle’s side, up until the game against Stoke last weekend where they looked re-invigorated and like a side whose league position is not reflective of their quality.
There were a lot of positives to take away from the game against Stoke in terms of individual performances more than anything. It’s easy to get demotivated and unenthusiastic when the side is under-performing, and usually takes time to turn it around, but the attitude of the Bolton players showed that they are committed to playing good football. After last season’s FA Cup semi-final where they went down to Tony Pulis’ side 5-0, you could have expected a cautious and tentative approach to the game, but the Bolton players looked to be galvanised and ready to set the record straight.
One of the key men in Bolton’s chances of regaining some form could be Chris Eagles. When I’ve seen him play, he looks like a confident and skilful player with a great deal of talent, someone who can change a game. At times against Stoke, he made Robert Huth look like a fish out of water, showing that he has the pace and guile to get at full-backs.
Not only does he play well when the team is on-song, but a couple of times he has been the shining light in an otherwise dull performance by some of his team mates. Bolton also looked like they got the best out of their front men in the 5-0 win. Davies and Klasnic seem very on an off, and sometimes will play some great attacking football in combination with the midfield, and sometimes look ineffectual even with Kevin’s work rate.
Bolton have a run of games now, with the possible exception of a trip to White Hart Lane in a few weeks, where they can build a run of results to help lift them up the table. Consistency is the key at this stage of the season and I would back Owen Coyle’s ability as a manager to get the best out of his squad when he needs it.
He’s done a fantastic job at the club and has built up a great rapport with the players. To translate this into points, he needs to keep them organised and solid as a unit, something they should be able to do with people like Reo-Coker, Kevin Davies and Gary Cahill on the pitch. They should also be able to create chances with the likes of Eagles and recently Mark Davies, for the front men to feed off, although you do feel that they could do with some form of additional creative influence, maybe in the form of an advanced central midfielder.
I think that the next few weeks will play a big part in shaping Bolton’s season. If they can get some good results against teams that they should at least be matching, then they should be on their way to mixing it in the mid-table jumble. However, if they fail to make an impression soon, they could find themselves in a bit of a scuffle at the bottom, particularly if the newly promoted teams continue their decent start and remain around 9th, 10th and 11th.
They need to be optimistic and play adventurous football, looking to inject life into their attacks and keep some fluidity in their play, using the wingers to run at full-backs and put the ball into the danger-zone. If they fail to do this, then Owen Coyle might be looking to dip further into the transfer market in January, in addition to a potential replacement for Gary Cahill.
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