Premiership preview, table prediction: 16. Bolton Wanderers

Bolton Wanderers

Nickname: The Trotters

Ground: Reebok Stadium

Capacity: 28723

Manager: Owen Coyle

 

 Squad:

·         Goalkeepers 1 Adam Bogdan 22 Jussi Jaaskelainen 26 Rob Lainton ·         Defenders 2 Gretar Rafn Steinsson 3 Marcos Alonso 4 Paul Robinson 5 Gary Cahill 12 Zat Knight 15 Tyrone Mears 18 Sam Ricketts 28 Mark Connolly 29 David Wheater

·         Midfielders 6 Fabrice Muamba 7 Chris Eagles 8 Stuart Holden 16 Mark Davies 19 Nigel Reo-Coker 21 Darren Pratley 23 Sean Davis 27 Chung-Yong Lee 28 Ricardo Gardner Josh Vela ·         Attacking Midfielders 10 Martin Petrov

·         Forwards 14 Kevin Davies 17 Ivan Klasnic 20 Robbie Blake 30 Tope Obadeyi 34 Tom Eaves Michael O'Halloran

Bolton Wanderers have very talented and good manager in Owen Coyle. Bolton has finished in 14^th place the last two seasons in the premiership and will be looking to improve that this year. I personally think they will be struggling around 15^th- 20^th this season, and I’m afraid they even might go down this year. Bolton started the season strong last season and ended in terrible. This year they have lost players like Johan Elmander to Galatasaray, Daniel Sturridge has gone back to Chelsea and Matthew Taylor has joined West Ham. In have Tyron Mears, Chris Eagles and Nigel Reo-Coker come. Two big contributors last season, Chung-Young Lee and Stuart Holding are both out of action for a long periode. Bolton midfielder Chung-Yong Lee has been ruled out of action for nine months after breaking his leg in the 3-1 friendly win at Newport County on July 30. United States midfielder Stuart Holden has resumed training after missing five months because of a knee injury.

At this point I don’t see Bolton have much to play on offensively, and they need to bring in a goalscorer if they are to stay out of the relegation zone. They have been linked to a lot of players lately so I’m sure Coyle will bring in some players to strengthen the side before the window closes. But on the negative side it looks like they will have a hard time keeping hold of Gary Cahill, with both Liverpool and Arsenal looking to sign him before the season starts.

Pre-Season Fixtures/Results

July 14 vs FC Tampa Bay 0-1

July 17 vs Orlando City 3-1 – K. Davies, Pratley, Petrov

July 20 vs Houston Dynamo 2-0 – Klasnic, K. Davies July

24 vs Bradford City 4-1 – Petrov (pen), Pratley, K. Davies, Klasnic

July 27 vs Bury 2-0 – Klasnic, Cahill

July 30 vs Newport County 3-1 Williams (og), Klasnic (2)

August 1 vs Hereford United 3-0 Eagles, Pratley, K Davies

August 5 vs Levante 0-1

Players in

07/11 Chris Eagles MF

07/11 Tyrone Mears DF

07/11 Darren Pratley MF

07/11 Nigel Reo-Coker MF

Players out

06/11 Johan Elmander FW

06/11 Rodrigo Moreno FW

06/11 Daniel Sturridge FW

06/11 Matthew Taylor MF

Most likely starting lineup for Bolton next weekend:

                                         Jussi Jaaskelainen

Gretar Rafn Steinsson   Gary Cahill    Zat Knight  Paul Robinson

Darren Pratley  Nigel Reo-Coker

Martin Petrov                                                                 Chris Eagles

                         Ivan Klasnic             Kevin Davies

 

At the moment Bolton aren’t looking strong enough in my opinion and will be struggling in the bottom of the table if nothing big happens in the transfer marked. Another thing I don’t understand is why Coyle have chosen to play against so many weak opponents in the pre-season matches. For me it looks like Levante is the only team that actually have some quality, and that match they actually lost. I think Bolton and Owen Coyle might be in for a chocking start when the premiership starts. Another thing I would like to ad is Boltons hard start to the season, meeting Man city, Liverpool, Man United, Arsenal and Chelsea in 5 of the first 7 marches. If they don’t pick up 3 pointers against QPR and Norwich, they are going to be dead and buried alone after 7 rounds of premiership football. But like I said, it can happen a lot on the transfer marked before the start of the season.