2 weeks Ago
Good Friday saw us heading to the Toughsheet in our thousands again for the battle of the Wanderers , against serious promotion contenders, Wycombe. They are in a two-way scrap with Wrexham for the second automatic promotion place behind the runaway champions, Birmingham City. The Doombar deliberations were very downbeat after last week’s thrashing at Barnsley.
That defeat, and more so the abject performance, had knocked the stuffing out of our hopes for this season. Mathematically, it wasn’t over, and stranger things have happened in football, but most fans felt all we had left to play for was restoring a bit of pride and showing some promise for the future. With the ever-increasing injury list, Steven Schumacher would have a chance to look at squad players to see who might make the grade under his control and maybe bring in some of our promising youngsters.
We seem to start with a back four with Chris Forino and George Johnston, the centre-back pairing and Klaidi Lolos given the central role up front with Aaron Collins out wide. Jordi Osei-Tutu was providing some pace down the right wing until he pulled up injured in the 15th minute. The first half was awful with both teams being as bad as each other.
Both goalkeepers could have come and sat with the crowd as neither had anything to do. In the second half, Wycombe stepped it up a bit and sure enough went ahead through poor defending from a free-kick, recklessly given away. We could have played all weekend and not scored and the Chairboys wrapped it up with their second goal in added time at the end.
The only glimmer of hope came in the substitute appearance of youth team forward, David Abimbola, who at least looked like he was prepared to put himself around a bit. Even the most optimistic of Bolton fans must accept another dismal performance has sentenced us to another season in League One. Schumacher must realise the magnitude of the job he has got to do now.
He cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. He must decide the kind of players he needs to bring in, to be able to play the way he wants, with style, spirit and passion. With more than 15,000 of us already signed up for next season, he will not be short of any advice.
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