Zach Clough's back? Bolton wait for good news on star striker

Wanderers have their fingers crossed Zach Clough will make a timely comeback in Saturday’s must-win clash with Rotherham United.

After missing the last five games with a hip injury Neil Lennon believes the young striker stands a fighting chance of returning to action at the Macron this weekend.

The Whites boss is also hopeful Darren Pratley and Gary Madine will be fit, both having pulled out of the squad to face Wolves on Tuesday night with a back injury.

And with all three key players fit, Lennon hopes the late rally at Molineux to grab a deserved point can act as motivation to gain further ground on safety.

“Pratley and Madine could be fit for the weekend and Zach Clough won’t be far away,” he told The Bolton News. “But we should go into the game in a positive frame of mind because I got everything I wanted from the performance against Wolves

“It was important we picked something up from the game in hand. It will give us a big lift and hopefully we can go on and build on that with a win.”

Clough was the subject of huge speculation during the transfer window and held talks with Bristol City over a £2million move earlier in the month.

A handful of Premier League clubs such as Everton, Bournemouth, Watford and Swansea took great interest before his three-week injury lay-off – which may well have worked in Wanderers’ favour in the end.

Lennon was pleased to have lost only fringe players, albeit his options have been thinned out in certain positions.

“Obviously it was a bonus but we did lose some,” he said, “There’s no getting around the fact our squad is very bare.

“We’re at the stage where we’re only just fulfilling the quota of players.”

Kaiyne Woolery was thrown in for his full Wanderers debut at Wolves and Lennon feels the 21-year-old will benefit from the experience.

“He is very raw but then we knew that,” he said.

“He has got the pace. It is a learning experience for him and there were three academy players out there and looked light physically at times because there was no Pratley and Madine but they found a way of playing and it worked for them.”

Source

Neil Lennon wrote:there were three academy players out there and looked light physically at times because there was no Pratley and Madine but they found a way of playing and it worked for them.

No point being physical if you can't kick a ball into an empty net from a yard out.

It looks to me as if we might have got lucky in the window and lusty might well be right in his assertion that some of the kids must get a chance to show us what they can do. Personally I don't know what will happen but if the likes of Woolery can step up and perform it may be the most promising development (no pun intended) we've seen here in quite a while. I still think we'll go down at the end of this season whether we enter administration or not but if a few of the younger players can make the most of their chance to play at Senior level we might find ourselves in better shape than anyone could have imagined possible a few weeks ago,

luckyPeterpiper wrote:It looks to me as if we might have got lucky in the window and lusty might well be right in his assertion that some of the kids must get a chance to show us what they can do. Personally I don't know what will happen but if the likes of Woolery can step up and perform it may be the most promising development (no pun intended) we've seen here in quite a while. I still think we'll go down at the end of this season whether we enter administration or not but if a few of the younger players can make the most of their chance to play at Senior level we might find ourselves in better shape than anyone could have imagined possible a few weeks ago,

But because nobody was interested in our senior players, the kids are LESS likely to get fully blooded this season as Lennon will continue to pick the seniors. 
He only picks young 'uns when his hand is forced as it was against Wolves although Holding is now as good as anything we've got at the back and Vela will continue to be used as a utility player. He likes Clough and Clayton when fit and Woolery may get the occasional look in but beyond that it's going to be tough for the youngsters, especially the ones who've reached 20 and still not broken into the team. I think the opportunity has passed but we'll see what the season holds - Lennon may give them a shot once relegation is confirmed.