Big earners may still have a future at Bolton Wanderers

PHIL Parkinson will not close the door on Wanderers’ so-called “big hitters” if they can prove to him they want to stay at the Macron.

Even though the large wage bill carried by the Whites into League One will put restrictions on how many signings the new manager can make, he is not ruling out keeping them at the club.

The likes of Darren Pratley, Liam Trotter, Mark Davies, Ben Amos and Jay Spearing are contracted for next season and, in some cases beyond, on salaries which will almost certainly be unsustainable at third tier level.

But Parkinson is keen to offer everyone a fresh start and will be making no pre-judgements on whether to try to move players on until he has had a chance to assess whether their character fits with his own ideas about the game.

“There are players of quality here who are earning good money,” he told The Bolton News. “If they have the same desire as I have to win games then obviously I’d like to keep them around.

“Players who have played at a higher level normally have more technical ability but it’s not always about that – you have to have desire to run from the first minute to the last.”

Parkinson makes no secret of the fact he wants to bring in new faces as quickly as possible, however, and could turn to some of the transfer targets he made at Bradford for inspiration.

“As soon as the news came out that I would be managing Bolton my phone lit up,” he said. “That included some of the players who I’d looked at regarding Bradford.

“I have my ideas of the players I want in and the characters I need. And I want to move as quickly as I can to get them in.

“I am confident I can attract the players to be competitive.”

Parkinson wants a squad size of 22-23 players, supplemented by home-grown youngsters. Currently, 20 professional players are on Wanderers’ books, though several, including the likes of Tyler Garratt, Alex Finney and Will Jaaskelainen, have limited first-team experience.

Wanderers will learn on Wednesday when the fixtures are released how their first season in League One since 1993 will pan out. Along with 46 league games they face at least three extra games in the revamped Football League Trophy and also start the FA Cup in the first round.

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/14563728.Big_earners_may_still_have_a_future_at_Bolton_Wanderers/

Which roughly translated means that nobody will take them off our hands and while we're still paying them exorbitant wages we might as well at least try to get some use out of them.

It worries me when the manager listens to a press office that feels he needs to make a statement about the bleeding obvious - whilst still managing to avoid coming clean to the readers about the fact that we are stuck with high earners unless someone is daft enough to take them on the terms they currently enjoy.

If the press office feel the need to have someone comment on the role of the senior players next season - and I'm not sure why they might - surely they should simply say they are in contention like everyone else and leave it at that until there's some actual news.

I hope Parkinson isn't going to be another manager to "big up" Mark Davies as some tort of talisman. Every manager since the ponce signed for BWFC has told us what a great player he is.

He isn't and never will be.

If the club can't sell him, they should try and pay up his contract and get rid of the tosser.

More pointless bollocks with the ubiquitous misleading title from Iles.

To echo sentiments which have already been expressed on this thread, a more accurate header for this "news item" would be:

"Phil Parkinson will obviously consider the high-earning players when he picks his teams next season if no one else is prepared to take them off our hands because of the stupid wages they are on."

And I also see that there's quite an argument raging in the comments of the BN section, which proves just how many people have missed the point and have taken this piece as some sort of statement of intent to keep the high earners.

whatsgoingon wrote:Which roughly translated means that nobody will take them off our hands and while we're still paying them exorbitant wages we might as well at least try to get some use out of them.

True enough ..... these are players with Prem experience and should be good enough along with any newbees coming aboard. If we have to pay them anyway...get them to play well and we could be laughing .....again in theory only.