What’s the point of it all if there’s a saboteur in the ranks?
Football supporters are a fickle bunch. They can love, hate and express indifference towards their team within a 90 minute timeframe. The team as a whole isn`t exclusive in garnering such emotions. A standalone player can experience such whimsy within a 90 minute match. Nothing in the life of a football supporter stirs sensations like the beautiful game? and Bolton Wanderers fans are not impervious to such phenomena.
Like the team, the Whites` supporters are going through a transition period. The hangover of falling out of the Premier League was overused last season to describe the team`s plight, but at no time was it used to describe the supporters. The jagged, jarring and contaminated football played during Bolton`s demise from the top-flight, which filtered through to last season`s Championship campaign, took its toll on the Wanderers` collective. A seemingly successful regime change hasn`t totally dispelled the uncertainty and fear from every supporter.
There are many Whites` fans who believe they`ve seen enough of Dougie Freedman`s conduct and commerce to feel the demons have been exorcised, with the stairway to the ‘promise land` needing just to be ascended. There are still some, however, who feel more proof is necessary before Dougie can be hailed as the second-coming. Understandable, of course, after feeling so hoodwinked following the stripping of Coyle`s Messiah-mask, to reveal just Brian.
So, with the believers to protect and the contentious supporters to fully convert, you would think the managing team would do everything they could to extinguish every possible means of self-destruction. If every effort is made on fitness, tactics, execution, recruitment and effort and the team falls short, no-one will have any cause for complaint. The better teams won; they shake hands at the final whistle, regroup and try to right the wrongs for next season`s pursuit of happiness. But, if there`s a glaring liability waiting to happen; reveals itself in preseason and nothing is done to erase it?
The good chaps at the brilliant ‘Lion Of Vienna Suite` website have put up highlights of Bolton`s preseason game with Shrewsbury. If you haven`t seen it, have a look. If you have, are you confident of going into next season with Zat Knight as your starting centre-back? Not only that, as your captain?
We can converse and deliberate for hours- in the pub or on this forum- which player or players are key to winning us promotion. But what is the point when a self destruction can be triggered at the back reminiscent of a scene from The Hurt Locker?
Please, you tell me. I`m all ears?