They say there are no easy games in the Premier League these days. That is certainly true of Bolton’s start to the season; our previous two games were against Liverpool and Manchester City and our next three games include Arsenal and Chelsea. There’s also the small matter of the Premier League Champions, Manchester United, on Saturday evening
It’ll be nice to get back to normality following the hectic nature of transfer deadline day last week, plus a two week break from the Premier League due to the penultimate round of qualifiers for the European Championships next summer.
It’s certainly been a busy summer here at Bolton, where Owen Coyle has been busy in the transfer market, were we’ve seen eight new faces join the club before the August deadline passed.
Owen with some new faces
It’s not just quantity though, as Owen has managed to bring in real quality too and has improved the squad in several key areas. With Johan Elmander moving on after his contract expired last season, and Daniel Sturridge returning to Chelsea after a very successful six months at The Reebok, we knew we needed striking reinforcements before the window closed. This has been quickly addressed with the excellent acquisitions of David N’Gog, a £4m deadline day signing from Liverpool, and Sanli Tuncay on a season long loan from Wolfsburg. With Ivan Klasnic netting three goals in three games since the start of the season and Kevin Davies being a constant thorn in opponents’ sides as usual, we have real strength and depth in attack with all four players bringing something different to the team.
Nigel Reo Coker relishing the Challenge at the Reebok
We also needed to strengthen in the middle of the park as the gaffer was forced to play players out of position towards the end of last season, a fact which no doubt contributed to our poor run of form. Owen has addressed this by bringing in Nigel Reo-Coker, a proven Premier League player with over 200 appearances in the top flight, as well as Darren Pratley to add much needed competition for places.
In addition to the above, we have signed two young prospects who are very highly rated at their parent clubs, especially Dedrek Boyata, who will be keen to make his Bolton Wanderers debut on Saturday against rivals Manchester United, as his registration came too late to feature against Liverpool in our last outing.
Boyata, What a catch, Man City Young player of the year !
The fact that we have managed to bring in eight new faces to improve the first team squad as well as keeping our international centre back in Gary Cahill, all the while having a net spend of £0, is a fantastic achievement and those at BWFC deserve great credit for what we should all consider to be a very successful summer.
United at home is the game, every Bolton fan looks for when the fixtures are published, Seems hard to believe it was nine years ago that we recorded the second of our back to back wins over United, and in their own back yard to boot.
Opps, nearly forgot our other 'new signing'... yes, Stu Holden's Back..
Our record against today’s opponents has not made for such good reading since. However, with our summer recruitment, and a manager with the philosophy of looking to win every game, we should be confident that it won’t be another 29 years between home wins. Here’s hoping we can end it at four on Saturday. Come on you Whites!
