On Bolton heroes
A large number of fans have said that they’d like to see the board return to the club’s roots, as they search for a manager to replace Dougie Freedman.
Names such as Jimmy Phillips, Phil Brown and Kevin Davies remind us of much better times at Bolton. All three played hundreds of games in a Bolton shirt and would be very popular choices among fans.
I think we can all agree that our best manager in recent times, if not ever, has been Sam Allardyce. Allardyce made 200+ appearances for us and before becoming our manager only had a few years of managerial experience. This matches Phil Brown’s resumé almost perfectly. Brown did brilliantly with Hull City to get them into the Premier League and they played some pretty good football too. In my opinion, he is the strongest of the before-mentioned three candidates. However, Brown has distanced himself from the job- but then again so did Dougie and Owen Coyle before they joined us.
Jimmy Phillips spent much of his career at Bolton and was born in the town as well. He is one of the favourites on our sidebar poll here at Vital Bolton. Some have reported that he rejected the job- though I cannot report that this is true. He was sitting in the executive box with Gartside and co. on Saturday. I agree that he did a good job as caretaker last time and has seemingly done well with the development squad. However, in our position I think we need someone with at least a little experience in management.
For that same reason I believe that Kevin Davies wouldn’t be up to the job either. I greatly admire everything he did for the club and I’ve written about it extensively. However, he’s got no managerial and very very minimal coaching experience. He said that he would ‘consider’ the job if he were offered it, however I’m almost 100% sure that he won’t be.
Obviously, these are just three of many Bolton heroes who have been linked with the post. However, not all former Bolton players have turned out to be great managers- just look at Nat Lofthouse as an example.
My first choice of all managers linked with the job would in fact be Chris Hughton. I personally don’t think we need someone who’s represented the club- we just need someone with experience to keep us up then build upon this for the next season.
So there you have it, leave your thoughts below. We have a new feature that will be starting tomorrow. Jay, a writer, will be writing fortnightly on a Tuesday looking at Bolton affairs from a different perspective.