I can help us dodge the drop, says Whites striker Doidge

Hitman Christian Doidge remains convinced there is enough in Wanderers’ squad to move out of danger.

Doidge, who joined from League Two side Forest Green Rovers in August, has a goal to his name in the second tier, finding the net late in the game to earn a draw at Rotherham United last month.

And, although that was Bolton’s only goal in the last seven matches, Doidge – who has started just two games so far – feels victories are in the pipeline.

“It’s been enjoyable here, it really has,” he told the club’s media channel. “Obviously it is a lot higher than I have ever played before and it has taken a little time to get up to speed, but the boys and the coaching staff have been very welcoming. I feel very comfortable now and I am ready to kick on and play football to help the team win some games. I think I have put in some good performances. I’ve started two games and I’ll admit my first wasn’t my best, but recently against Hull I thought I put a good shift in.

“Coming on and scoring against Rotherham gave me a massive boost, but I am now just trying to get on the pitch and do some good stuff that will aid the team.”

Doidge joined initially on loan from the Gloucestershire team, with the move to be made permanent for a seven-figure fee in January.

He left as the Greens’ record goalscorer with 56 in 99 appearances, and the fee for the transfer will be the biggest the club has ever received for a player.

Doidge’s goals helped Forest Green avoid relegation back to the National League last term and he is keen to replicate that in the Championship and help Wanderers stage another escape.

“I found out about the interest and immediately I wanted to move to such a great club,” he said. "I had opportunities in the past to move away from Forest Green, but this one really grabbed my attention.

“It was something I wanted to come up here for and be a part of.

“I couldn’t have got up here quick enough. The Championship has been very good to experience first-hand.

“Everybody will be saying this, but there are no easy games at all in this division.

“You have to be on your game in every fixture.”

Source

We'll never know as Parky only gives him 10 minutes a game and we are usually losing by then.

Doidge must be signing Rob Earnshaw.

What is it 13 years since Sam signed Anelka to help us into Europe for the 2nd time?
And now Ken wants us same people to get excited about a lad from Forest Green firing us to 4th bottom of Div 2.
I can't say i'm massively arsed if he fires us to 3rd bottom or 4th bottom of this league,Its a pile of shit whatever.

Norpig wrote:We'll never know as Parky only gives him 10 minutes a game and we are usually losing by then.

You have hit the nail on the head there. Waste of time bringing him on with 10 minutes or so left when we are losing. He should be starting and then we will see after four or five full games of "putting a good shift in" if he is going to be good enough or not at this level. There is nothing to lose as no one else seems capable of scoring at the moment anyway.

With or without Doidge, I want to see Parky select his first choice 11 for the next three games. All good if he makes a couple of changes based on countering the oppositions main threats but changing half the team every week shouldn't be necessary at this stage of the season.

Unless we see a settled team, major improvement in performances and a minimum of 4 points from the next 3 games I think it's time for a managerial change. We'll get nothing from Norwich and Leeds so it would be a good time to bring someone in to instil a new approach.

Parkinson's achievements at Bolton have been amazing but we can't just sit back and watch our club slide back into League 1. It could be disastrous.

finlaymcdanger wrote:Parkinson's achievements at Bolton have been amazing

Amazing is a bit strong.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

finlaymcdanger wrote:Parkinson's achievements at Bolton have been amazing

Amazing is a bit strong.

Well, I still find it amazing that we're playing Championship football this season and am happy to credit him with that. Needs to get his finger out fast though.

Growler wrote:What is it 13 years since Sam signed Anelka to help us into Europe for the 2nd time?
And now Ken wants us same people to get excited about a lad from Forest Green firing us to 4th bottom of Div 2.
I can't say i'm massively arsed if he fires us to 3rd bottom or 4th bottom of this league,Its a pile of shit whatever.

Strange that. I thought it was Garty that chased up the signing of Anelka and persuaded Eddie Davies to guarantee the c.8million transfer fee and Anelka's weekly wages of x thousand pounds. From memory x was about 80 but I could be wrong.

The top players came here because Sam was doing a great job managing Bolton, as soon as Sam left it was the end of world class players signing here, Anelka did one after about 3 months working for Meggo.
The money on offer was irrelevant, top players  wouldn't sign for managers such as  Sammy Lee and Meggo.

Growler wrote:The top players came here because Sam was doing a great job managing Bolton, as soon as Sam left it was the end of world class players signing here, Anelka did one after about 3 months working for Meggo.
The money on offer was irrelevant, top players  wouldn't sign for managers such as  Sammy Lee and Meggo.

To be honest I doubt the likes of Campo, Djorkaeff or Okocha knew much about Allardyce when they signed for us, as up to then his career highlights had been with Blackpool and Notts County and getting us promoted with the likes of Gareth Farrelly, Bo Hansen and Ian Marshall in our side.

They say that money talks and I suggest those three probably were more concerned about securing a lucrative contract for the end of their respective careers, rather than solely coming to work for Big Sam.

Fair play to Sam for coming up with the strategy of signing world class players, whose careers had stalled at the fag end of them - and giving them a fresh challenge - it brought us our glory years of a few years ago - but it also probably started the unsustainability years of the club whereby we were spending a huge amount on players wages which could never be recovered through selling them on because they were already towards the end of their careers when we signed them.

Maybe Hierro and Anelka - a year or two later - came because of Allardyce but I seriously doubt the others would have joined us without the wages we were prepared to pay them because at the time Allardyce had simply not made his name as a top, top manager which he went on to do, mainly started with their signings.

It seems to me fanciful to think that any player joined BWFC because they loved Sam Allardyce or his style of football. We were an established Premier League side, with great facilities and paying near top dollar wages. But we hadn't won anything of note since 1958 and the odds would always be  stacked against clubs like BWFC unless they had owners with pockets a lot deeper than Eddie Davies.

BWFC offered Anelka a welcome route back to the Premiership and he was pleased to take it enjoying one of his best spells as a player at the club before getting the opportunity to move to big bucks Chelsea and a real chance of re-establishing himself in the top player league.

Back to the point I was making, it wasn't Sam Allardyce that bought Anelka, it was Eddie Davies (persuaded by Garty) despite the fact that they both expected Sam to soon be packing his bags and off to somewhere with better prospects than BWFC. Anelka's agent would have realised that too unless he was totally out of touch.

Bolton had to sell themselves as a club to persuade world class players  to sign, the likes of Djorkaeff, Campo and Okocha would have no shortage of offers on the table.That is where Allardyce came in.He had the gift of the gab, oozed confidence and had high hopes for the club which although fanciful for a newly promoted club with a small budget was infectious.These players had won some of the games biggest honours but were sold a vision of bringing  happy times to Bolton by Sam Allardyce.Megson on the other hand was the polar opposite of Allardyce, dour, lacking in confidence, aggressively defensive and talked the club down whenever he could.His targets in the transfer market reflected this.We went from signing world class players to signing hard working British lads in the Aston Villa and Portsmouth reserves .And the daft thing was Megson was given more money to spend than Allardyce.

I don't agree with Sluffy's point about Allardyce leaving a team of old men with no transfer value.Allardyce arguably left Bolton with better players than any other manager in the clubs history.Nolan, Diouf, Al Habsi, Anelka, Faye were sold on for £28 million and then the likes of Kevin Davies, Stelios, Campo, Jasskalainen had time left in them

Growler wrote:Bolton had to sell themselves as a club to persuade world class players  to sign, the likes of Djorkaeff, Campo and Okocha would have no shortage of offers on the table.That is where Allardyce came in.He had the gift of the gab, oozed confidence and had high hopes for the club which although fanciful for a newly promoted club with a small budget was infectious.These players had won some of the games biggest honours but were sold a vision of bringing  happy times to Bolton by Sam Allardyce.Megson on the other hand was the polar opposite of Allardyce, dour, lacking in confidence, aggressively defensive and talked the club down whenever he could.His targets in the transfer market reflected this.We went from signing world class players to signing hard working British lads in the Aston Villa and Portsmouth reserves .And the daft thing was Megson was given more money to spend than Allardyce.

I don't agree with Sluffy's point about Allardyce leaving a team of old men with no transfer value.Allardyce arguably left Bolton with better players than any other manager in the clubs history.Nolan, Diouf, Al Habsi, Anelka, Faye were sold on for £28 million and then the likes of Kevin Davies, Stelios, Campo, Jasskalainen had time left in them

The biggest mistake was giving the job to Sammy Lee.

You have to remember that footballers have agents and they have the gift of the gab too and the gab is usually all about money. But it is possible that if BWFC weren't in the Premiership and were still playing at a run-down Burnden Park and training wherever they were training in those days and were owned by a board with no money to invest, that the agents of Okocha, Djorkaeff, Hierro or Anelka wouldn't have even bothered talking to BWFC if there were better offers kicking around.

The 'gift of the gab' might sway some and seduce others but footballers have a best before date. They and their agents know it only too well.

Growler wrote:Bolton had to sell themselves as a club to persuade world class players  to sign, the likes of Djorkaeff, Campo and Okocha would have no shortage of offers on the table.That is where Allardyce came in.He had the gift of the gab, oozed confidence and had high hopes for the club which although fanciful for a newly promoted club with a small budget was infectious.These players had won some of the games biggest honours but were sold a vision of bringing  happy times to Bolton by Sam Allardyce.Megson on the other hand was the polar opposite of Allardyce, dour, lacking in confidence, aggressively defensive and talked the club down whenever he could.His targets in the transfer market reflected this.We went from signing world class players to signing hard working British lads in the Aston Villa and Portsmouth reserves .And the daft thing was Megson was given more money to spend than Allardyce.

I don't agree with Sluffy's point about Allardyce leaving a team of old men with no transfer value.Allardyce arguably left Bolton with better players than any other manager in the clubs history.Nolan, Diouf, Al Habsi, Anelka, Faye were sold on for £28 million and then the likes of Kevin Davies, Stelios, Campo, Jasskalainen had time left in them

If I remember correctly all three of Campo, Djorkaeff and Okocha were languishing in their respective clubs reserves - being thought of as past their best when we signed them - so I don't think they had too many clubs chasing after them back in the day, as it was Allardyce who made it become popular signing quality players at the end of their careers who no longer were considered good enough for their current team with his success with Campo, Djorkaeff and Okocha.  

As for the players left behind by Allardyce, apart from Anelka (who we all knew was always going to be sold on to a top club) we recovered relatively nothing as almost non of our players moved on for a fee of any size.

As for Faye what are you talking about - £28 million???

Faye was sold to Newcastle at a loss for £2.5 million (we bought him for £2.7 million!) and was sold on to Stoke for £2.6 million and was never involved in a permanent transfer that attracted a fee after that.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/abdoulaye-faye/profil/spieler/6107

I was on about the combined total of those 5 players
Nolan 4 million
Al Habsi 4 million
Anelka 14 million
Diouf 3.5 million
Faye 2.5 million

There was a £6 million profit on the Anelka deal and as we know from the club accounts  Eddie Davies took £1.5 million out of the club as a "transfer success fee"

Growler wrote:I was on about the combined total of those 5 players
Nolan 4 million
Al Habsi 4 million
Anelka 14 million
Diouf 3.5 million
Faye 2.5 million

There was a £6 million profit on the Anelka deal and as we know from the club accounts  Eddie Davies took £1.5 million out of the club as a "transfer success fee"

Eddie Davies didn't take anything out as a "transfer success fee". He was entitled to a fee as part of the financing arrangements for the purchase of Anelka but he never took it. The amount owed stayed on the clubs books until it was eventually written off in 2014/15 as part of a tidying up exercise under which Eddie loaned the club another 11million and wrote off 9.5million of accrued interest. The idea was to make the club as attractive as possible to bona fide new owners. It didn't work.

Btw in the same year (2006/07) that ED guaranteed increases in bank loans to purchase Anelka and Faye he also agreed to pay 3million for the naming rights of the academy. It was his club and he didn't need to pay anything at all but he was making a point. BWFC couldn't be sustained by splashing out big money on expensive transfer fees or huge wages on those past their best before date.

That didn't work either until years later when Ken Anderson was able to keep the show on the road by selling academy graduates Zach Clough and Rob Holding.

Growler wrote:I was on about the combined total of those 5 players
Nolan 4 million
Al Habsi 4 million
Anelka 14 million
Diouf 3.5 million
Faye 2.5 million

There was a £6 million profit on the Anelka deal and as we know from the club accounts  Eddie Davies took £1.5 million out of the club as a "transfer success fee"

Ah ok, but having sold such players they had to be replaced ideally by younger and better players and Allardyce clearly did not want to hang about to do that so we ended up with Megson's signings of -

Elmander £11.3 million
Muamba £5.7 million
Cahill £5.4 million
Steinsson £4.73 million
Taylor £4.23 million
Helguson £2.57 million
Shittu £2.16

Total over £34 million.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/bolton-wanderers/alletransfers/verein/355

Either way you slice it an older squad left by Allardyce had to be replaced in a relatively short period of time (just two seasons) with a virtually new one by someone else.

Allardyce himself didn't cover himself with glory when he finally had money to spend as the signings of Barton and Smith to Newcastle proved.


I'm a great admirer of Allardyce but he left us on his terms and with his successor - whoever it happened to be - with a squad rebuilding to be done in a short period of time.

History shows that we the club never achieved that successfully and have sunk ever lower (financially and in the league) ever since.

He left us with Diouf, Davies, Anelka, Dzemaili, Faye, Ben Haim, Jaaskelainaen and Faye - all great players and all under 30 (poss exception of Jaasekelainaen?).

We also had European football to attract players with. Let’s not pretend he left us in anything other than a good state.