Thomas Jenkins chips in with his views on Feeney and Trotter, linking it with the whole mentality of the club
When looking for inspiration for my first article here at Vital Bolton a piece in the good old Bolton News caught my eye. It concerned a comment made by Liam Feeney, our divisive (to put it mildly) winger, that “if people write us off it gives us a reason to do better”. It seemed earlier this summer when bookmakers nationwide listed Bolton as favourites for relegation that exactly this had happened: we had been ‘written off`. Since then we have done little to prove our many doubters wrong both through lack of signings and poor pre-season results. It would appear to onlookers that Bolton are a team preparing for a season of mediocrity but Feeney thinks this could be an advantage. The reason I find this interesting is because it is the pacy winger himself who holds this belief when, by many of our fan base, he too has been ‘written off`.
When Liam Feeney donned the white shirt for the first time against Yeovil in September 2013 it seemed to us all that he was a stop gap signing by then manager Dougie Freedman. He had arrived on loan alongside Neil Danns and Kevin McNaughton into a side that hadn`t won a game all season. He played 4 times for us before being recalled by parent club Millwall and during that time became a popular figure, especially impressing against Birmingham City where he assisted for both Bolton goals to give us our first win. By the next summer he had been snapped up on a free after fans had been keen to see him return and, in my opinion, he was one of our most consistent performers in the first half of last season. His pace was something the side lacked which provided an outlet and he came up with a good number of assists. Then it all went wrong.
As I`m sure most readers will agree, so far 2015 has been a tough year for Feeney. He became a target for the boo-boys and almost every time he is on a team sheet Twitter is awash with fan displeasure. He says in the interview that ‘sometimes adversity can be good for you` and this can be true. In his case though I wouldn`t say the pressure is off him as he seems to think it is off the club. The fans will put a lot of pressure on him to perform better and he will have to rise to the challenge. Have we written Liam Feeney off?
It goes without saying that we have done this to a number of players in our current squad. Liam Trotter had a very shaky start to his Bolton career and has failed to get over it. His name on a BWFC team sheet is greeted with negativity usually reserved for Blackburn fans. Dorian Dervite has many to win over after poor displays this year, some of which can only be described as dire (see Bournemouth away or the opening day at Watford). But these players have shown on occasion they have good qualities and maybe if we weren`t so quick to ‘write them off` they would show it more often.
I would like to finish by offering an example of where our faith has been rewarded in recent times. It comes in the form of our skipper Darren Pratley. He used to be like Feeney and Trotter: a pariah to the fans. His ascendancy from zero to hero should provide inspiration to our ‘written of` players and teach us as fans to show a bit more patience.