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Josh Dacres-Cogley shrugged off any emotional backstory involved in his return to St Andrew’s tonight, insisting: ‘This is just about the points!’
The defender was a part of the Blues set-up for a decade, graduating through the academy to make his first team debut in 2016.
His five seasons in the Championship at St Andrew’s brought just 30 appearances but the 28-year-old insists he does not return to the Midlands with any point to prove.
Birmingham’s massive summer spending after relegation guaranteed them the tag of title favourites and they have made an excellent start, winning eight of their first 10 league games.
Though his former club have been grabbing headlines with their transfer business, Dacres-Cogley says his focus has been squarely on improving Bolton’s fortunes over the last few weeks.
“To be honest, I have tried not to pay much attention to the table at all,” he told The Bolton News. “It’s been about the next three points, for me.
“A lot of people have been talking about them (Birmingham), they have been winning games and stuff, but that’s nothing to do with us. As long as we’re taking points, they can do whatever they want.
“I want to beat them. Anyone would if they had left a club having been there that long.
“I haven’t tried to focus on anything other than what’s ahead of me. We want to be at the top of the table, they are there at the moment and they are the target, so we want to catch them. The only way to do that is by winning games.”
Ian Evatt will serve the second of his three-game touchline ban this evening and will once again be in radio contact with his assistants Stephen Crainey and Pete Atherton from a position in the stands.
Dacres-Cogley says the impact is minimal – but he does believe the decision-making on the pitch has improved over the last few months.
“To be fair, a lot of the boys don’t really hear it,” he said of the manager’s instructions. “We try and give out the different bits of information between ourselves anyway, we know the solutions, we know what teams try and do to us. If there is a certain press, we need to change the way we build, stuff like that.
“We should be dealing with that on the pitch and then at half time you speak to the staff and say ‘they are doing this, that, blah, blah, blah, but it needs to be sorted out between us, really. You can’t be expecting everything to come from the sideline.
“I think we are experienced enough. I think before we were probably guilty of not having that communication on the pitch to change games, we were playing into their hands a bit. I think we have got better at that now and you are hearing more from the lads, trying to figure out different ways to manipulate teams and play the way we want to play.
“It is improving – and we definitely need to get better, everything does, but we’re on our way with it now.”
Wanderers have won four of their last five games since the humbling 4-0 home defeat against another relegated side, Huddersfield Town, last month. And Dacres-Cogley believes the shock of that result has ultimately brought out the best in the players around him.
“You can see there has been an improvement and sometimes it takes something like that to spark the team,” he said. “From the disappointment everyone felt we knew that something needed to change, and we hope we have shown in recent weeks that it has, so we need to continue that now.”
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