Bolton Wanderers boss sends 'clear-out' warning to the fans

The Bolton boss admitted after Monday’s 4-2 defeat at Lincoln City that the job he walked into at the end of January, taking over from Ian Evatt, is bigger than he first thought.

And part of that challenge is the fact that most of the first team squad are currently under contract, with 18 senior outfield players on the books alongside goalkeepers and homegrown talents like Sonny Sharples-Ahmed and David Abimbola.

Gethin Jones, Ricardo Santos, Nathan Baxter, Joel Coleman and Luke Matheson – who is currently on loan with Alfreton Town – are among a handful whose deal expires this summer, although loanees like Jay Matete, Kion Etete and Alex Murphy are also due to return to their parent clubs.

This season has proved to be a let down for the Whites, who went into the current campaign with design on automatic promotion after two misses in the play-offs, boosted by a bigger playing budget.

Asked whether the players had let him, themselves or the club down in failing to reach the top six, the Bolton boss was realistic about the road ahead.

“Again, it's another underachievement of a season, so over the whole season, yes,” he said. “This club shouldn't be in League One, but it has been for too long, and there's been mistakes made. We are where we are in the season right now.

“For me, personally, I came here full of optimism, and then when you actually see what's happening and what we've got, it's like, OK, well, to answer your first question, yes, it's a bigger job than expected, but I see what everybody says, and I hear certain things about shaking the squad up.

“Well, there's not an awful lot of people that are out of contact, so how we go about doing that, I'm not quite sure yet.

“We've got some work to do, but we'll be sitting down as soon as possible. Me and Fergal (Harkin) now obviously know what we're going to be in, what division we're going to be in.

“We probably knew that anyway from last week, but we just have to get it sorted, because clearly it’s not good enough.”

Wanderers spent heavily in both transfer windows, including the £1.2million addition of Joel Randall in January from Peterborough United, less than a fortnight before parting ways with Ian Evatt.

Discussions on budgets have been ongoing in the last few weeks between new sporting director Harkin, who is finishing out the season at his current club Standard Liege, and the ownership group.

Schumacher believes there are some obvious gaps left to fill.

“When we are back in pre-season then we've got to get to work,” he added. “The challenge, as I said before, is that we've only got three outfield players out of contact, and two goalies, so that's going to be difficult.

“The players who we signed this summer for example, we signed three number 10s, two in the summer and one in January, and all three have got long-term deals.

“That is going to be really difficult, because it's crowded obviously in those areas, and we lack in certain other areas – a recognised number nine and wide players.

“We have got loads of work to do but we’re aware of it – and we’ll be speaking very soon now because we know what division we’re in and what we’re up against.”

The manner of defeat at Sincil Bank on Monday outlined just why Bolton have failed to meet their targets.

The team has now conceded 68 goals – a total surpassed only by next opponents Peterborough United outside the relegation zone – and the standard of defending against Lincoln left Schumacher shaking his head in disbelief.

“It is such a frustrating team to watch and to coach,” he said. “They do so many good things, and then just let ourselves down, either with poor finishing or poor defending.

“The way we started our first 20 minutes, we’d spoken about Lincoln, they're in good form, they always start the game well. We had to be positive, we had to be aggressive, we had to go and win second balls against them.

“We didn't win a tackle in 25 minutes and we were 2-0 down. Their first goal comes from a corner, a set play, and we’d talked to the players saying if they send three (players) out, we've got to get three out and match their numbers. The ball comes in the box, no-one touches it, it goes straight in the goal.

“They are the softest goals we've ever seen. The penalty, I don't think it is a penalty, it's soft. It's just frustrating, and then after that, from 25 minutes onwards, we play well and we score two, we should have had a few more goals.

“The keeper made a worldie save, Kion Etete should have scored, but it doesn't matter, you get beat, so it's so frustrating.”

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