Bolton Blog Zone

How To Fix Bolton Wanderers

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Okay, so the name of the title for this article may be a bit simplistic.

I don’t know for certain how exactly to fix the club. But on the field at least, with the international break giving us time for reflection, here are one or two things that could help us get going again.

Scrap three at the back for good

It hasn’t worked in the Championship, with the odd glorious exception (Bristol City at home and Sheffield United away last season), but Phil Parkinson has seemed to keep the back three up his sleeve now and again, despite results generally being poorer when we go that way. It requires decent ball-playing centre-backs, which isn’t something we excel in, and in one recent attempt with it, Mark Beevers seemed to spend a lot of the time bailing out wing-back Lloyd Dyer.

Try Marc Wilson at left-back?

None of our left or left-wing backs have exactly excelled, Antonee Robinson has been missed. Wilson can play there though and hasn’t been tried. It could backfire massively but we’ve tried the other options.

Drop Will Buckley

I’m not keen on singling out players, but Buckley’s last couple of performances have been particularly weak, and with the return of Sammy Ameobi I’d prefer him and Craig Noone to be the wide men who walk out at Millwall next weekend.

Pick a striker who has scored

We are struggling for goals. Badly. While Josh Magennis has dried up in front of goal after a promising start, I’d still rather him, or the other striker we spent a transfer fee on, Christian Doidge, to get the nod, rather than Clayton Donaldson, who hasn’t scored yet.

Stop conceding early goals

Defensively, we aren’t that bad, seven clubs, including top-six West Brom, have conceded more than us, but a recent trend has crept in since the Forest game where we’ve found ourselves 1-0 down in the first 15 minutes, the next point is more of a problem…

Do more up front

We’re the lowest scorers in the division, and we’re also awful at creating chances too, which is as big a concern. Hopefully, Ameobi’s return will aid this, plus the potential introduction of Stephen Ireland and we might have some more opportunities, and good opportunities at that too.

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