Time For Bolton To Look Forward
Bolton's 2-1 victory over Birmingham on Sunday ensured the Trotters season ended on a high note and hats must go off to Owen Coyle for leading us comfortably to safety.
To finish up nine points clear of third-bottom Burnley suggests we achieved our survival without really breaking sweat although I’m sure we’ll all concede that certainly wasn’t the case throughout what has been an arduous struggle of a campaign from start to finish.
If you cast your minds back to that fateful 2-2 draw with Hull in December, I'm sure most of us will agree it felt as if Bolton were on a downward spiral towards relegation under Gary Megson.
At that time we were languishing in the relegation zone with just 18 points from 18 games and having failed to beat Wolves and Burnley in the same month, it looked as though the squad lacked the belief, quality and hunger to get themselves out of the mire.
Fortunately resounding fan power convinced chairman Phil Gartside and the club's board to end Megson's reign as boss and all of a sudden those thick grey clouds hanging over the Reebok started to disperse.
Of course there were inevitably a number of pundits, journalists and fans of other clubs who thought he was doing an efficient job on limited resources and instead criticised the 'high' expectations demanded by the Wanderers faithful.
However, they did not understand the situation like we the supporters did and despite a battling second half of the season it's a massive relief to declare that we were proved right - Megson had to go and Coyle was the best choice to take charge.
He did of course have his fair share of scares such as when an embarrassingly poor 3-0 defeat at Blackburn extended a worrying winless run in the Premier League to five games but his motivational skills managed to get the right response from the players as they went up to chalk crucial victories over Wolves and West Ham to steady the ship and put us back on the right track.
A 4-0 thumping victory over Wigan in March was undoubtedly the brightest moment of the season and although Bolton went on to lose the next four on the bounce against Everton, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Chelsea, they effectively crossed the finish line with a plucky come-from-behind win at Stoke.
The terrible second-half display against rock-bottom Portsmouth, when we threw a two-goal lead away to draw 2-2, underlined the weaknesses which Coyle needs to address and no doubt he’ll be keen to firmly imprint his ideas on the club during the coming summer months.
Bringing in Jack Wilshere, Vladimir Weiss and Stuart Holden has shown us just what style of play he wants to pursue but apart from that he’s only really been able to work with what he's inherited from Megson and done pretty well in the tough circumstances to grind out enough points to keep our heads above water.
He turned the previously blundering Zat Knight into a new confident defender while Chung-yong Lee flourished under Coyle’s influence and it was no surprise to see him scoop three top end-of-season awards at the club.
Overall we must be thankful to Gartside and co for listening to the fans on the managerial change, which saved our sinking ship, and hopefully now the squad can be rebuilt in the summer in a bid to keep well clear of the danger zone during the next campaign.
Obviously we'll never know if Megson would have taken us down, but at least we're not wishing we could turn the clock back.
