BWFC: Not Quite What I Imagined

Let me take you back to the beginning of August. The weather was lovely, Bolton had an owner who still funded the club and Gary Madine was a 20 goal a season striker.

Derik Osede was the best ball playing defender in the country. Prince was an absolute rock at the back. Francesco Pisano was going to come in and be the right back equivalent of Francesco Totti. Ben Amos was the next van der Sar. Zach Clough and Max Clayton were going to have full seasons with no injury and each score 20 goals too. I even thought Stephen Dobbie was going to be good.

It all looked fantastic, and despite having to be shrewd, I thought than Neil Lennon had put together a very good squad. One, I thought would be good enough to reach the playoffs.

Who could have foreseen what was going to come. Gary Madine missed around seven open goals and lost all confidence. Popular assistant manager Johann Mjallby left the club. Derik was injured and then when he did come into the team, looked very out of place. Prince proved to be hugely inconsistent. Pisano disappeared. Amos did well for a while, however started letting in easy goals: conceding is a habit. Clough got injured, then came back and almost went to Bristol City, then got injured again. Clayton got injured and will be out for the rest of the season, as he does.

Captain Darren Pratley who had been terrific last season seemed to lose form. Dorian Dervite never really got going. David Wheater looked good, then got injured because he’s David Wheater. Neil Danns was inconsistent and then also seemed to disappear. Shola Ameobi came in and did reasonably well, then left because we can’t sign anyone even though he offered to play for free.

Not to mention, our owner stopped putting money into the club and players and other members of staff have not been paid. We’ve had to sell some of our many car parks, and it’s all just gone a bit bad, hasn’t it.

To be fair, that confidence before the season was somewhat misguided. However, I did think that we would at least come somewhere between the play-offs and our predicted finish according to my cycle of despair (which predicts that we’ll finish 19th in the Championship every season for the next 400 years- see here: http://www.bolton.vitalfootball.co.uk/sitepage.asp?a=409983).

Could you have foreseen this?