Sam Ricketts says Bolton did not push hard enough on Stoke relegation day

Former Wanderers defender Sam Ricketts has revealed he does not think Wanderers tried hard enough the day the club toppled out of the Premier League at Stoke City.

Asked what the low point of his playing career had been, the current Coventry skipper pointed to the 2-2 draw at the Britannia Stadium in 2012, which condemned Owen Coyle’s side to relegation.

Popular Wales international Ricketts played in a range of defensive positions for the Whites in a four-year career at Bolton, which ended abruptly when they dropped into the Championship.

And the consequent financial problems at Wanderers have left Rickett’s feeling regretful the team did not do more to beat Stoke, which would have relegated QPR.

“It was the day that Man City scored two goals in injury time to win the league,” he said. “We were relying on them to beat QPR and if we had won at Stoke, we would have stayed up.

“I just think that in the latter stages of the game, When we were getting reports back that QPR were winning 2-1 going into injury time, I look back and I don’t know if we tried hard enough to get a winning goal in the last five minutes.

“I’m not sure that we envisaged Man City coming back in the last five minutes and winning the league like they did, so we didn’t have the mad finish we should have had. If we had managed to get another goal, we wouldn’t have got relegated.

“It was a shame because you see the knock-on effect at Bolton now and that probably started by losing out on Premier League money. After that, different things happen over the years.

“It’s a club which I really enjoyed being at. It’s the longest I’ve been at any club, four years, and it was a club that I didn’t really want to leave when I did. I’d like to see Bolton back in the Premier League if possible one day.”

Source

I agree with Sam. I think we gave up.

That was a very bad day for us.

On the other hand if we had stayed up we would have been stuck with that idiot Coyle even longer. Not that it seems to mastter now.

We would have been relegated and United would have won the league.  QPR stopped playing after they heard our match had finished.

That may have been the case for Sam Ricketts personally but it's not what I saw - we had a go.  Coyle subbed Klasnic who was doing nothing for CYL and at the death brought on Sordell. Ream nearly scored with a header and there were at least 2 decent chances in the last five minutes that I can remember and I was sat closer to the goal than Sam Ricketts got during the whole game. We were unlucky on the day but we shouldn't have got into that position in the first place.

wanderlust wrote: I was sat closer to the goal than Sam Ricketts got during the whole game.

How on earth did you get your armchair onto the pitch?