"He's not ready" - Keith Hill wants to protect January signing

Wanderers fans have been warned not to expect striker Muhammadu Faal to be playing regular football just yet.

The January signing has made just one sub appearance since quitting non-league with Enfield Town to sign a professional deal with the Whites.

He has remained on the bench for the last three games as Chris O’Grady and Daryl Murphy continued their partnership up front.

And Hill has indicated that Faal will not be rushed into the first team as a protective measure during what has been a tough run of fixtures for Bolton.

“He (Faal) is not ready, nowhere near ready,” he told The Bolton News. “He’s on the bench because we have no other options, simple as.

“I don’t want to expose him and I get smashed up and he gets smashed up. I don’t want to do that.

“I don’t think it was right initially to put Ryan Delaney on, either.

“I don’t want to expose these players to potentially coming on at Doncaster or Coventry and getting beat by five. I don’t think we deserve that as a football club, I don’t think the players on the pitch deserve that.

“They are on the bench because they are very fortunate this is a learning environment and they can learn whilst sat watching.

“I can afford to risk losing that game five and six-nil and the senior players be more deflated than they are now.

“It’s a learning experience for Muhammadu and he knows that. He knows where we need to take him and when he’s ready, trust me, he will definitely play.”

Faal’s only real taste of senior football for Bolton so far came as a late sub against Rochdale – after which Hill admitted he had considered starting the 22-year-old to make it easier for him to get into the pace of the game.

He also played the last few seconds of the 5-1 defeat at Lincoln.

Faal will join team-mate Daryl Murphy tonight at the Bolton Wanderers Supporters Association’s ‘Meet the Players’ event, to be held at the Hall of Fame suite from 7.30pm.

BWSA members can attend for free and non-members can pay £5 or join on the night.

Source

I posted this on the match thread earlier -

Sluffy wrote:

boltonbonce wrote:A few of us on chatbox were wondering why Faal wasn't being given a go. Now we know.


https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/18231096.bolton-boss-keith-hill-says-muhammadu-faal-not-ready-first-team/

Sorry, we don't know at all, he's talking utter bollocks again.

Remember when we first signed him Hill said he had toyed with the idea of STARTING him and he did bring him on late in the match.

He also made a sub appearance a game or so later.

Now according to the same bloke who told us he was going to start him half a dozen games ago, that he's now "nowhere near ready"!!!???

Something odd is going on here, I can't make my mind up if Hill's been ousted from team control by Kenyon's Moneyball folk (if that is really happening at all even???) or if he's simply no idea what he's doing or talking about.

Probably both is the answer!

Faal isn't up to it or he'd been playing from the start.

Every year there's plenty of seventh tier strikers scoring loads of goals but very few (if any?) get signed by third tier clubs - on a free - and establish themselves as regulars.  There's a reason for that - because they must have been scouted by loads of other clubs (Brentford is virtually next door to where he played for instance and they do this Moneyball stuff) many times previously and non of them have fancied him - until we came along!

Hopefully he will find his feet in the fourth division next season.