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It’s 11 years now since Agueeroooo day and Bolton were relegated from the PL. It is no surprise that since that day and without the riches that PL football brings that Bolton have tumbled down the leagues, went into administration and are where they are now. So many clubs who go down end up in the wilderness for decades to come.
The key is to always stay in the PL and collect the huge sums of cash and eat at the top table.
Big Sam did an amazing job with Bolton, to get Bolton to become an established top 10 side signing players like Anelka and Okocha was an amazing achievement. I always knew that when Big Sam left, Bolton would find it hard. But what did go wrong? Was it the managerial choices after Big Sam left? Sammy Lee, Gary Mugson (see what I did there?) and Owen Coyle in hindsight look really poor but were they really bad at that time? Coyle seemed to be quality at Burnley. But I felt he should have been sacked long before he was.
Was it the transfer strategy of signing quality ageing players under Big Sam with little resale value which eventually caught up with the club not being able to replace them and then the signings brought in towards the end were not good enough? There were mistakes such as Elmander who cost over £8m in 2008 was hopeless and left for nothing 3 years after paying big money for him. N’gog and Sordell was useless too. But there were some good signings like Cahill, Holden, Mark Davies, Steinsson, Chung yong Lee, etc.
Or was it simply not having the resources to compete in an ever improving and competitive league. I mean look at this season Leeds and Leicester are going down with real quality teams.
It was a real shame Bolton messed it up and got relegated, could Bolton still be there today if they got things right?
The key is to always stay in the PL and collect the huge sums of cash and eat at the top table.
Big Sam did an amazing job with Bolton, to get Bolton to become an established top 10 side signing players like Anelka and Okocha was an amazing achievement. I always knew that when Big Sam left, Bolton would find it hard. But what did go wrong? Was it the managerial choices after Big Sam left? Sammy Lee, Gary Mugson (see what I did there?) and Owen Coyle in hindsight look really poor but were they really bad at that time? Coyle seemed to be quality at Burnley. But I felt he should have been sacked long before he was.
Was it the transfer strategy of signing quality ageing players under Big Sam with little resale value which eventually caught up with the club not being able to replace them and then the signings brought in towards the end were not good enough? There were mistakes such as Elmander who cost over £8m in 2008 was hopeless and left for nothing 3 years after paying big money for him. N’gog and Sordell was useless too. But there were some good signings like Cahill, Holden, Mark Davies, Steinsson, Chung yong Lee, etc.
Or was it simply not having the resources to compete in an ever improving and competitive league. I mean look at this season Leeds and Leicester are going down with real quality teams.
It was a real shame Bolton messed it up and got relegated, could Bolton still be there today if they got things right?
