Should Garty Have Kept His Trap Shut?

There is one thing for certain when Bolton chairman Phil Gartside makes an announcement. It will be greeted with abject cynicism by a significant proportion of the club`s supporters. So it is with last week`s claim that the Wanderers are to break their transfer record for a new striker. Garty is now three days into his self-imposed seven to ten day deadline to land the new man, and there`s been no new information, just the tiresome regurgitation of old rumours from the press. Louis Saha, Johan Elmander, Bafétimbi Gomis, Milan Baros. None of them are inspiring.

Should Gartside have kept quiet until he`d got his man? Does the man exist? Is it a ploy to sell a few more season tickets? The latter idea may seem overly distrustful, but it is how the minds of many fans work, a fact which seems to elude the man in charge.

Parallels have been drawn with the attempted capture of Rivaldo in June 2004. The Brazilian was a sublimely talented player, but integrity wasn`t his thing. During the 2002 World Cup, he went down holding his face, after being hit on the shin. He was, he explained, ‘using his cunning`. His attitude to transfer deals wasn`t any more ethical, but Gartside was still optimistic as the move started to go off the rails.

‘We are still talking to him. I’ve got a fax in my pocket from him saying he wants to come and, hopefully, it’s just a case of us getting together and sorting it out,’ he said.

It wasn`t and they didn`t. Rivaldo joined Olympiacos. Bolton followers, who aren`t the forgiving sort, still hold a grudge against the chairman for failing to make the deal, despite the club qualifying for Europe twice in the four years that have followed.


Was Garty right to speak out, or should he have kept schtum? Vote in the lastest Vital Bolton poll.