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The golden sunshine and giddy excitement of victory at the Hawthorns in August has long since faded for Wanderers fans.
Yanic Wildschut’s last-minute winner snatched an unlikely three points and had us all pondering that was in store for Phil Parkinson’s new-look side.
A mere 170 days later and the outlook does not feel as rosy. Wanderers are second-bottom of the table, three points from safety and the man who announced himself on debut that day will be nowhere to be seen on a frost-bitten Monday evening.
Wildschut may well have played his last game for Bolton, having picked up a serious ankle injury in the FA Cup win against Walsall. He is currently back at Norwich for treatment and not scheduled to return until April, at which point who knows how the land will lie.
The winger struggled to convince Parkinson he was worthy of a regular start and by the manager’s own admission never developed into the match-winner we had all hoped a one-time £7million player to be.
“It’s a shame for Yanic… but it is what it is,” he told The Bolton News.
“He has found himself out of the team. He had scored early in the season and did well.
“Being a good lad he’s been fine while he has been out of the team, trained well, and to be honest we were expecting a big upturn in form towards the second part of the season.
“We were working with him and showing what he needed to do, But I can’t say he’s been an integral part of the team up to then.”
West Brom have also lost a key man in Harvey Barnes, recalled from his loan spell and now scoring goals in the Premier League for Leicester City.
“It’s a bonus for us because he is a very, very good player,” said Parkinson, who had twice previously tried to bring the young midfielder to Bolton. “In terms of personnel, West Brom will be very similar to what we faced earlier in the season.
“We had a great win at West Brom and I think they’ve gone on to have a good season, at least in my opinion.
“I think they would probably be expected to be more or less where they are with the players they’ve kept since coming down from the Premier League. We know what they’re all about, there isn’t a great deal of difference to what we saw in August.”
Parkinson is looking for an added measure of focus from his players tonight than was shown at Bristol City last weekend.
After going a goal up, the Bolton boss was disappointed to have come away from the game with nothing.
“We had to do better when we’d scored because their goals we could have done better, there’s no question about that,” he said.
“We’ve got to look at the strength of character when we go a goal ahead to make sure we concentrate and do those very simple things better than we did, in terms of heading the ball out to see the game through.”
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Yanic Wildschut’s last-minute winner snatched an unlikely three points and had us all pondering that was in store for Phil Parkinson’s new-look side.
A mere 170 days later and the outlook does not feel as rosy. Wanderers are second-bottom of the table, three points from safety and the man who announced himself on debut that day will be nowhere to be seen on a frost-bitten Monday evening.
Wildschut may well have played his last game for Bolton, having picked up a serious ankle injury in the FA Cup win against Walsall. He is currently back at Norwich for treatment and not scheduled to return until April, at which point who knows how the land will lie.
The winger struggled to convince Parkinson he was worthy of a regular start and by the manager’s own admission never developed into the match-winner we had all hoped a one-time £7million player to be.
“It’s a shame for Yanic… but it is what it is,” he told The Bolton News.
“He has found himself out of the team. He had scored early in the season and did well.
“Being a good lad he’s been fine while he has been out of the team, trained well, and to be honest we were expecting a big upturn in form towards the second part of the season.
“We were working with him and showing what he needed to do, But I can’t say he’s been an integral part of the team up to then.”
West Brom have also lost a key man in Harvey Barnes, recalled from his loan spell and now scoring goals in the Premier League for Leicester City.
“It’s a bonus for us because he is a very, very good player,” said Parkinson, who had twice previously tried to bring the young midfielder to Bolton. “In terms of personnel, West Brom will be very similar to what we faced earlier in the season.
“We had a great win at West Brom and I think they’ve gone on to have a good season, at least in my opinion.
“I think they would probably be expected to be more or less where they are with the players they’ve kept since coming down from the Premier League. We know what they’re all about, there isn’t a great deal of difference to what we saw in August.”
Parkinson is looking for an added measure of focus from his players tonight than was shown at Bristol City last weekend.
After going a goal up, the Bolton boss was disappointed to have come away from the game with nothing.
“We had to do better when we’d scored because their goals we could have done better, there’s no question about that,” he said.
“We’ve got to look at the strength of character when we go a goal ahead to make sure we concentrate and do those very simple things better than we did, in terms of heading the ball out to see the game through.”
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