Coyle made eight major signings in the summer, spending around £7million to bring Chris Eagles, Tyrone Mears and David N’Gog to the club, signing Darren Pratley and Nigel Reo-Coker for free, and Dedryck Boyata (Man City), Gael Kakuta (Chelsea) and Tuncay (Wolfsburg) on loan. But an extra £10million would have allowed Coyle to add two or three more players to his squad.
With Bolton struggling at the wrong end of the table, Coyle will almost certainly need to spend money in January. Bolton are not a club that can afford to spend £10million or more on a single player, so he is unlikely to have much available to him, but the sale of Cahill would give Coyle more funds to improve his squad for a relegation dogfight.
But even with money to spend, Owen Coyle will have a difficult time persuading good players to come to the Reebok when there is a real threat of Bolton being a Championship side next season. Teams at the bottom of the table will often have to overpay to get players to come in, and it can leave them with financial headaches should they be relegated. Bolton still have time to save themselves. Wigan and Blackburn are very poor sides and are unlikely to get themselves out of trouble. The three newly promoted teams have all enjoyed strong starts to the season, but history suggests that at least one of them will drop back towards the relegation zone. But it will still be difficult for Bolton to salvage their season.
The reality is that Bolton have not really benefitted from keeping Cahill in the summer. He’s been part of a defence that can’t stop conceding goals and a team that can’t consistently pick up points. It’s impossible to say how their season would have gone had they sold Cahill, but could it really have been any worse? They will still try to get big money for Cahill in January, but with his contract expiring in the summer, and relegation a real possibility for Bolton, it may be impossible for them to get the money they want, and strengthen their team enough to save themselves.
This article was written by David Dougan and is courtesy of our partner website thisisfutbol.com. Read the latest news and blogs about European Football at TiF. – ed
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