Bolton suffered another defeat with a 2-0 loss at home to Wycombe.
The result saw us drop another place in the league, as Ian Evatt’s men look in danger of sleepwalking into a relegation battle for the last few months if things don’t take a positive turn soon.
The first half hour or so was actually quite good from us – quite a few chances but as ever we weren’t able to make one, just one of them count. Wycombe then went down the other end and scored, with our defenders just backing off and allowing a weak shot to roll from Brandon Hanlan to squirm past Joel Dixon. Once that goal went in, it seemed to destroy us. We did practically nothing for the rest of the half and the crowd went quiet too, save for the annoyance of Wycombe’s frankly odd time-wasting. On a cold night, you don’t really want 14 minutes of stoppage time in the first half…
The second half was no better and any hope we could get back into this was extinguished when Jack Grimmer’s shot flew in to double the Wycombe lead. There were finally signs of life from us after that, although too late, and still unable to find the back of the net. One positive was the return of Gethin Jones – having started for the reserves at Lostock this afternoon he also got more than half an hour for the first team, with Marlon Fossey pushed further forward, where he looked dangerous enough to catch the attention of opposition manager Gareth Ainsworth judging off his post-match comments. He certainly was more a threat in the second half than Amadou Bakayoko or Nathan Delfouneso were. There are questions as to whether Delfouneso should be shifted off this month, while it might not be the worst thing in the world if we got another central defender in too. Preferably one that can defend at this level.
There were also late chances for George Thomason and Ronan Darcy, who managed to hit the woodwork in stoppage time. but neither could prevent a fifth straight loss in the league.