For every struggling team there is a moment in a season that determines how remaining fixtures will go.
Some are subtle and can be the award of a corner or a 50/50 challenge.
Others however are far more obvious like Bolton Wanderers 7-1 battering away at Reading.
This comes after weeks of Bolton manager Dougie Freedman claiming his side are in ‘good form’.
It was a claim that raised eyebrows every week given that Wanderers have won just two of their last ten games and lost five times in that period.
After Saturday it is a claim that Freedman can no longer make without being laughed out of the building as his team sit perilously just four points outside the relegation zone of the SkyBet Championship.
It is a defeat that will come as a humiliation for Bolton fans and one that forced the manager to apologise to supporters.
It is however a defeat that Bolton needed.
Following Saturday, the players and management will be unable to go along with this illusion that they are playing well and are just being unlucky.
They will now have to accept that their performances are well below par for a squad that, on paper, is a match for the top six or seven sides in the Championship.
The Reading loss should serve to force everyone at the club to face up to that reality and could have the effect of raising the game of everyone at the club.
Heavy defeats can serve to spark a team into life as it did for Manchester United in 2011-12 when they were hammered 6-1 by neighbours Manchester City and went on a run of nine games unbeaten, including eight wins.
Bolton fans will be hoping for a similar effect here to kick-start a run of form which will drag their side away from the bottom three in the table.
Coming in the middle of the January transfer window, this defeat may also force the club to redouble their efforts in terms of getting players in at the Reebok.
Despite the club’s well-documented financial difficulties, this is a window where Freedman has insisted the club will try to bring in new players and Saturday showed just why they are so badly needed.
At the back in particular the Trotters are in need of some fresh faces, with injuries taking hold and the likes of club captain Zat Knight performing so badly.
While money may be an issue for Bolton, performances of late must serve to convince the board of the need to back their manager in this window.
Freedman is a man under pressure and will need to find a way of picking his players up after this latest setback in a difficult campaign.
Whether the usually calm Scot has a hairdryer in his locker is unknown but if he does possess a fiery blast it will surely have been directed at his team on Saturday.
If it takes a day of humiliation to ignite a change in attitudes at The Reebok then the crushing defeat to The Royals has come at the perfect time.
Bolton can no longer continue in the belief that all is well at the club and it is just a matter of time before things start to turn around – it isn’t.
There is plenty wrong at the moment and Bolton are far from certain of being safe from the threat of relegation.
That said, if Saturday is used as a watershed moment and it brings about a change in fortunes, then it will be a humiliation worth suffering.
This current setup of management and playing staff is capable of turning things around with one or two additions to the squad – as they did in the second half of last season.
Nobody connected with the club will want to remember Saturday’s trip to The Madejski for too long, but if it is a springboard for a change in attitudes and a redoubling of efforts at Wanderers then it will be a crushing defeat that was badly needed.
Image courtesy of BWFC Official via YouTUbe, with thanks
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