Home
Keith Hill reckons Wanderers got a “dress rehearsal” for this weekend’s league game with MK Dons in cup defeat against Plymouth Argyle.
The Bolton boss believes his side will have to show more creativity against a Dons side he expects to sit deep and hit on the counter-attack.
Wanderers laboured in possession last Saturday but Hill will have winger Thibaud Verlinden available again after his parent club Stoke City refused to allow him to become cup-tied.
Hill admits his side hardly got out of the blocks against Plymouth but hopes to get a quick response from his players, seeking a win that could put the club back in positive points in League One.
“There has got to be a reaction,” he told The Bolton News. “If you don’t start right it’s harder to finish right. And we didn’t get that lucky break in the second half or that passage of play we needed to break them down.
“They sat really deep and caused us to be too negative in possession. Having the ball is great but you want it to be more positive.
“I am looking forward to the MK Dons game now. Looking at a few of their previous games they have done something similar so it might be a good dress rehearsal.”
Having scrutinised the performance against Plymouth, Hill said there had been a noticeable dip in standards from key players who were instrumental in stringing three victories together back-to-back for the first time in two-and-a-half years.
“That is how I have measured my team, how they have done in and out of possession,” he said. “And that is why they were beaten, that measure wasn’t good enough.
“If the players get those performance levels to the standard they have created, it raises that expectation level for everybody to get three points against MK Dons, and there is nothing wrong with that at all.
“But if we play like we did against Plymouth, there’s a chance we’ll be beaten by MK Dons, and that is what we have to avoid.”
Source
The Bolton boss believes his side will have to show more creativity against a Dons side he expects to sit deep and hit on the counter-attack.
Wanderers laboured in possession last Saturday but Hill will have winger Thibaud Verlinden available again after his parent club Stoke City refused to allow him to become cup-tied.
Hill admits his side hardly got out of the blocks against Plymouth but hopes to get a quick response from his players, seeking a win that could put the club back in positive points in League One.
“There has got to be a reaction,” he told The Bolton News. “If you don’t start right it’s harder to finish right. And we didn’t get that lucky break in the second half or that passage of play we needed to break them down.
“They sat really deep and caused us to be too negative in possession. Having the ball is great but you want it to be more positive.
“I am looking forward to the MK Dons game now. Looking at a few of their previous games they have done something similar so it might be a good dress rehearsal.”
Having scrutinised the performance against Plymouth, Hill said there had been a noticeable dip in standards from key players who were instrumental in stringing three victories together back-to-back for the first time in two-and-a-half years.
“That is how I have measured my team, how they have done in and out of possession,” he said. “And that is why they were beaten, that measure wasn’t good enough.
“If the players get those performance levels to the standard they have created, it raises that expectation level for everybody to get three points against MK Dons, and there is nothing wrong with that at all.
“But if we play like we did against Plymouth, there’s a chance we’ll be beaten by MK Dons, and that is what we have to avoid.”
Source