Bolton’s season has started slowly.
Terribly in fact, it just hasn’t got going. Early cup defeats where we looked good in patches but were soft at the back haven’t really improved, and as September came to an end there was a really poor performance at home to Newport, where if anything if it felt as we regressed.
It feels stupid to try and pick the positives out of September, but here are some of the better performances. Depressingly, most of them were in the two cup matches.
Jak Hickman
Wasn’t universally welcomed when signed after his previous misdemeanours but his ability to get forward and put balls in hasn’t gone unnoticed. The change in system to get him further forward could well benefit him, it did at Colchester even if it couldn’t result in someone putting the ball in the back of the net.
Billy Crellin
Was pretty impressive in the cup defeats to Bradford and Crewe, with the goals not really being on him, and making some good saves to keep us in those matches, but has come in for criticism in the last couple of league matches, being quite far out for that second goal at Colchester, then both goals against Newport coming after his initial saves came out to Tristan Abrahams. Always a slight worry when your goalkeeper is one of your best performers though.
Tom White
Very good on the ball when he made his debut in the Carabao Cup. Probably hasn’t hit those levels since.