Saturday’s game against Queens Park Rangers was one played in terrible conditions, but despite that, your support was as fantastic and it was superb to see, particularly in the closing stages when we were chasing a winning goal, how your backing drove the team on.
The match also marked the first time this season that we have fielded an unchanged side, only reiterating the manager’s belief in his group of players.
Come full time, I think a draw was probably a fair result and a reflection of the game as a whole, but after having led for so long and the determined back-to-the-wall efforts the team put in defending our lead, we were all a little disappointed come the final whistle.
That said, if someone had said before the Sheffield Wednesday game that we would take four points from a possible six, we would have certainly taken it.
As I have previously said, this league has improved since we were here two years ago and the quality of the opposition and the players, many of which have played at Premier League level, is extremely impressive alongside the huge monies being spent by the big clubs.
The competitiveness, ups and downs and twists and turns of the league results week-in, week-out means that in my opinion, consistency is what we must aim to achieve as has been the case with Wolves this season.
With this in mind, I have made the following observations. Firstly, Cardiff have only scored one Championship goal in October, but are still second in the league.
Middlesbrough, with no wins in their last five games, are still only five points off the top six, while Sheffield Wednesday have suffered four defeats in five games.
Leeds had lost their last three games before the weekend, Reading have only had one win in seven Championship games with four defeats and for QPR, Saturday’s match was their fourth draw in five games and they have not won away since February.
Finally, prior to Saturday, Hull had gone 25 away games without a win, Sunderland have taken four points from their last ten games and have no wins in 11 and Burton have endured three defeats in last four games and have gone five matches without scoring.
Every team in the Sky Bet Championship will have a bad patch this season and it just so happened that ours came at the start of the campaign.
What we now need to do is to achieve consistent performance levels and results, but we must remember that there are still 99 points to play for between now and the end of the season and l truly believe that we have a squad capable of climbing up the league between now and then.
As always, l urge everyone to come along and get behind the team to help us achieve this on a weekly basis as your support can make all the difference.
Finally, l was made aware of Queens Park Rangers’ website’s comments on ‘Three Players To Watch’ prior to the weekend’s game.
l put this down to mind games however – the players certainly should take no notice of articles such as this and should perhaps even take it as a compliment, particularly as David Wheater as he arguably played one of the best games of his time at the club on Saturday.
One way or another, their claims about our players’ weaknesses were left unfounded come the final whistle and that is testament to the hard work that the team put in at the training ground.
This, coupled with the superb efforts of Karl Henry alongside the return of Josh Vela and Sammy Ameobi – three players who have felt like new signings in recent weeks – has me confident that the results will continue to come as we head towards the end of the year.
Elsewhere, we expect to hear the verdict on the ACV later this week and I will update you all as and when we have news.
We also have a number of offers available for supporters including £10 free personalisation on home shirts and any tickets purchased this week for midweek performances of our upcoming pantomime costing just £10 per person.
For more information on the above, please visit Bolton Central or call 0844 871 2932.
Kind regards,
Ken