Bolton Wanderers aim to go back to basics at Fulham

Dougie Freedman confirmed his “back to basics” plan will commence at Fulham tonight.

The Wanderers boss revealed he intends to simplify his team’s style in an effort to get out of the bottom three.

He says the decision was prompted by Saturday’s defeat against Derby but also the loss of players such as Lukas Jutkiewicz, Alan Hutton and Andre Moritz, who left the club in the summer.

Injuries to Mark Davies and Liam Trotter have also forced a tactical rethink – with Freedman confident his reboot will get results to take some of the pressure off his own shoulders.

“Looking back over a few months, a certain style was working for us at the end of last season and one or two personnel are now missing from that. We had to quickly change,” he said. “Losing Mark Davies in pre-season and Liam Trotter, who gives us driving force in midfield hasn’t helped us at all.

“We have got to go back to some basics to get some points on the board.

“We were too expansive against Derby and I asked too much of the players. We need to go back to the beginning – which I have done a few times in my time at Bolton – to grind results out. There’s no doubt in my mind we can do that.

“It’s unfortunate we have to do it because I thought we’d evolved a bit quicker.”

Freedman could hardly wish for a worse place to start a revival. Wanderers have scored just once in six visits to Craven Cottage and are without a league win there in seven years.

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Raining quite heavily in London at present, although I'm in 'Ackney and not even close to West London, so if it's back to basics, might be a cold and wet back to basics. "Back to basics," says to me running, kicking the ball and getting in position, bit of dribbling, some passing and shoot on sight. If the team follow that philosophy then I can confidently predict a good win. Just said that and the sun's come out FFS. There's a drawing board on the other side of the office so I'm going to go to it.