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Relegation could be confirmed for Wanderers as soon as tomorrow and David Wheater is not looking forward to the feeling.
Having experienced relegation twice before, with boyhood club Middlesbrough in 2009 and then with Bolton four years ago, the defender is one of the few players left from Owen Coyle’s reign who knows how gut-wrenching the experience is.
He hopes an unlikely victory at Derby this weekend can stave it off for another week but accepts the inevitability of the drop to League One after a season where the Whites have won just 10 per cent of their 40 league matches to date.
And that sinking feeling is not what he anticipated at the beginning of the campaign.
Wheater told The Bolton News: “It is the worst feeling – I know, having been through it in 2012 and three years earlier with Middlesbrough.
“Unfortunately it looks like it is going to happen. We go there with everyone expecting us to lose. We just have to go there and try and show what we can do and what we should have done through the whole season.
“We know we can do a lot better and we have the team to have done a lot better. We should be higher up than we are – we know that.”
After a winless season on the road, the odds are stacked against Bolton breaking their 12-month away streak at the iPro Stadium against a Derby side that drew 0-0 with the Whites on the opening day at the Macron.
Since then the clubs have gone in opposite directions in the Championship with the Rams pushing for promotion and Wanderers rock bottom.
But Wheater, who was speaking during a community appearance at the Storehouse Pantry project on Johnson Fold Estate where he helped volunteers and also handed out tickets to Bolton at Home residents for the home match against Middlesbrough a week tomorrow, says the team has to play with pride for both themselves and the travelling fans.
The 29-year-old said: “We just have to go out and play as well as we can at Derby and show professional pride and get a result for the fans. They have been terrific for us – we need to try and put a performance in for them.
“We know it is going to be hard at Derby but it would be great to get the three points.
“We are all trying to get results.
“Sometimes it doesn’t go well like on Tuesday but you have to keep going and looking to the next game as hard as it is at present.
“We watched the video from Brentford the day after and we know we didn’t create enough.
“The shape wasn’t the best in the first half but we improved in the second. “We got a goal back and we need to play every game now like we did in the second half at Brentford.
“We need to hold our shape and then look to counter attack. We have pace up front in the shape of Zach and Kaiyne. We need to get the ball to them, get more goals and stop conceding.”
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Having experienced relegation twice before, with boyhood club Middlesbrough in 2009 and then with Bolton four years ago, the defender is one of the few players left from Owen Coyle’s reign who knows how gut-wrenching the experience is.
He hopes an unlikely victory at Derby this weekend can stave it off for another week but accepts the inevitability of the drop to League One after a season where the Whites have won just 10 per cent of their 40 league matches to date.
And that sinking feeling is not what he anticipated at the beginning of the campaign.
Wheater told The Bolton News: “It is the worst feeling – I know, having been through it in 2012 and three years earlier with Middlesbrough.
“Unfortunately it looks like it is going to happen. We go there with everyone expecting us to lose. We just have to go there and try and show what we can do and what we should have done through the whole season.
“We know we can do a lot better and we have the team to have done a lot better. We should be higher up than we are – we know that.”
After a winless season on the road, the odds are stacked against Bolton breaking their 12-month away streak at the iPro Stadium against a Derby side that drew 0-0 with the Whites on the opening day at the Macron.
Since then the clubs have gone in opposite directions in the Championship with the Rams pushing for promotion and Wanderers rock bottom.
But Wheater, who was speaking during a community appearance at the Storehouse Pantry project on Johnson Fold Estate where he helped volunteers and also handed out tickets to Bolton at Home residents for the home match against Middlesbrough a week tomorrow, says the team has to play with pride for both themselves and the travelling fans.
The 29-year-old said: “We just have to go out and play as well as we can at Derby and show professional pride and get a result for the fans. They have been terrific for us – we need to try and put a performance in for them.
“We know it is going to be hard at Derby but it would be great to get the three points.
“We are all trying to get results.
“Sometimes it doesn’t go well like on Tuesday but you have to keep going and looking to the next game as hard as it is at present.
“We watched the video from Brentford the day after and we know we didn’t create enough.
“The shape wasn’t the best in the first half but we improved in the second. “We got a goal back and we need to play every game now like we did in the second half at Brentford.
“We need to hold our shape and then look to counter attack. We have pace up front in the shape of Zach and Kaiyne. We need to get the ball to them, get more goals and stop conceding.”
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