Bolton 0-2 Wycombe: Hill In, Out Now, Or Out Later?

Bolton lost again at home as Wycombe turned up and beat us on our own patch in a battle of the Wanderers.

It was fairly even in the first half, but Bolton’s tendency to concede a late goal in either half reared its head again. Wycombe, who hadn’t scored an away goal for a few months, found themselves ahead when Jason McCarthy’s cross was initially turned away by Josh Emmanuel, unfortunately the clearance hit Toto Nsiala and went in anyway. Some goals get nominated for a Puskas award, that one could get a Perrier award

Heads seem to go down after the goal went in and if Nsiala was unfortunate with the first goal, his mistake set in motion the events that resulted in the penalty for the second goal. He let it bounce (how many times are defenders told not to do that?) with Adebayo Akinfewa of all people lurking, the ball was worked ahead to Fred Onyedinma and Remi Matthews came out and brought him down. Joe Jacobson stepped up and sealed all three points.

I don’t think there’s any point in changing a manager right this minute. Nobody sensible would take the job until the end of the season as we are going down without a trace, and with all due respect to Jimmy Phillips, it wouldn’t be wise to have him in charge for 15 games, having never really shown anything in previous caretaker roles to suggest he’d be any better. Let Keith Hill have until the end of the season, give him a chance to improve even, but surely behind the scenes we have to be looking now at an alternative, no matter how next summer goes in terms of recruitment many fans will be expecting promotion next season and we have to get this right.

One argument is we change a manager now and let the new man use the last 15 games to build a culture, philosophy or whatever buzzword you prefer but the risk is any defeats between now and the end of the season knock confidence or whatever. Let them have a full summer, that should be enough to get the point across, and it would be the best time anyway.

It’s entirely reasonable that we would have gone down this season. Should we have made much more of a fight? Definitely.