Marked for Daniel Spencer
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match1 Jan 2028
0‑4 to West Ham United, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Richard Brown has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Match3 Jan 2028
Position 22, 21 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
Pressure builds in the Bolton Wanderers boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market3 Jan 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Transfer targets3 Jan 2028
Bolton Wanderers asked and Cheltenham Town said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout3 Jan 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Xavier Simons, and the manager let it.
Match3 Jan 2028
Position 22, 21 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
Nobody left the Bolton Wanderers dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Nov 2027
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match2 Nov 2027
Southampton are out and Bolton Wanderers go through, 2‑2 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match8 Nov 2027
Position 23, 7 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match2 Nov 2027
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 112. Southampton had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
From twelve yards, and Akin Famewo misses
A penalty is the one moment in football with nowhere to hide, and he did not score it. The walk back was long and the week will be longer.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad8 Nov 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bolton Wanderers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
The manager makes an example of Ar'jany Martha
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad20 Sep 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Xavier Simons
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bolton Wanderers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad20 Sep 2027
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match15 Sep 2027
A 1‑1 win over Harrogate Town, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
What a way to start for Daniel Spencer — 7.31
1 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.31 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
Market20 Sep 2027
Jayden Nelson hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bolton Wanderers can pretend not to have heard.
Match18 Sep 2027
No end in sight to Bolton Wanderers's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Bolton Wanderers has to find a result from somewhere.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Bolton Wanderers may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market20 Sep 2027
Richard Taylor has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bolton Wanderers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Latrell Lewis is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.