Is this the worst Bolton team for 20 years?

I must be honest, I don't blame Gartside or Eddie Davies at all for what has happened. IMO at the time, Owen Coyle was the number 1 candidate for the job. He has a great track record at St Johnstone and Burnley. He was a former player, it looked a great appointment. Sadly we can now see that Owen Coyle has been found out for being not up to it.
But in recent years we have tried to spend as much as we can, under Megson we spent crazy amounts on the likes of Elmander, Matt Taylor, Cahill, Steinsson, Muamba, Knight, Ricketts, etc. Sadly most of the signings have had no resale value at all - Elmander, £8m and lost him for nothing - poor signing. Knight and Steinsson must have cost about £8m between them and are now worth less than a tube of smarties. For a club like Bolton that is criminal, surely you have to sign players who will have a higher resale value such as Cahill.

I think if we did stay up this season we'd only struggle terribly next year. So many players out of contract, so few of our players are good enough. Having said that, with all our debt we really could do with staying in the Premier League. Could be a heck of a long time before we're back in the Premier League.

Michael Bolton wrote:I must be honest, I don't blame Gartside or Eddie Davies at all for what has happened. IMO at the time, Owen Coyle was the number 1 candidate for the job. He has a great track record at St Johnstone and Burnley.

I think we were swayed by the fact Coyle was an ex-player from the golden decade. This is a post I read on the JA606 site earlier today from a Burnley fan, I think it sums up Coyle perfectly:

As a Burnley fan it is very interesting to read your comments regarding OC.

All I can say is that when Burnley were in The Championship, Coyle was a good Manager. Not amazing but good. Remember we finished a distant 6th in the league and got in via the play-offs.

In our season in the Prem, we had the odd good early result (beat Man U ) but by the time Coyle left we were effectively relegated. Yes Laws was awful but no worse than Coyle. Coyles signings were bizarre, If you were Scottish and had 2 legs you were in. Probably only Fletcher was anywhere near PL standard and he has hardly set the world on fire at Wolves.

Watching Bolton this season ( from a distance) has been just like watching Burnley in The Prem. The major difference being that Coyle took over an established PL team with a decent nucleus of players.

His signings of Blake, Eagles and Mears were bizarre. None are ever going to be even average PL standard.

Coyle would delight and frustrate us all in one game but he always had an excuse. It was never his fault.

I think you will stay up (just) despite Coyle. Just make sure Rovers go down.

Well that hits the nail on the head Nat. In his time at Burnley in the Premier League, he started off on fire, all the players seemed so up for it and loving the big time. But after a few losses and the honeymoon was over Burnley were really pretty poor and they never won away under Coyle.
So yeah, the signs were there that Coyle wasn't some sort of genius, he always seemed to do well when the team was on a high, but when things went bad he couldn't turn things around - a bit like that 18 defeats we had in 21 league games last year.
I agree about Eagles, he's not Premiership standard at all.
Was Gartside wrong to not sack Coyle when we had that terrible run of results when we lost 18 of 21 league games?
I wonder if Coyle will be manager of Bolton next season?

Michael Bolton wrote:
Was Gartside wrong to not sack Coyle when we had that terrible run of results when we lost 18 of 21 league games?
I wonder if Coyle will be manager of Bolton next season?

Coyle should have been sacked at various points throughout the season. He should definitely be sacked in two games time due to our results since the FA Cup Semi Final last year.

But he'll be our manager in the Championshp.

Not if all us fans boycott the matches he wont. But that wont happen will it because the sheep will willingly go to the slaughter. I wont go to 1 game in the championship if this dick is still manager.

Would Wednesday's Bolton team have beaten the 1995 play off final team? I would love to see that match up! I bet David Lee could still skin our full backs ps. I know Lee didn't play that day - just sayin'!

Cracking sum up from a burnley fan, sensible one too.

There is one part that caught my eye near the end, which a wigan fan said the exact same thing before out game at the reebok earlier this season, whenever we get beat it's never his fault. I didn't agree with it 100% at first but as the season has gone on the more the guy i was speaking to was right.

Where the fuck is Mears by the way?

When we go down I absolutely guarantee you that Coyle will blame the injuries to Holden & Lee. No mention will be made of the clueless tactics and awful signings.

On the interview he gave the other day he said we would be top 10/mid table if we had Lee and Holden, sorry but no doubt Holden is a cracking player but I still don't believe we would be that much better of if they were here.

The only thing we've come out with this season is a reasonable defence, a hit-and-miss midfield, and a piss-poor attack. How can anyone find 'positives' from this shower of shit, and still try to come away without any blame. It beggars belief !

I do think we'd be maybe 5-6 points better off though (with lee and holden)

Maybe, maybe 38 points but still not what i'd call a great season.

But who knows what have happned.

Hhmmm, maybe, but still doesn't detract from the fact that we could have, and should have, done better.