Dougie Freedman believes that he is still the man to lead Bolton Wanderers back up the Championship table, despite the club suffering their fifth defeat of the season.
The Trotters fell to 21st after losing 1-0 to high-flying Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday, and have taken just five points from eight games.
But despite this latest setback, the 40-year-old Glaswegian believes that he can oversee a reversal of the trend in his side’s league form.
“I’m very convinced I am the person to improve the situation,” said Freedman. “We’ve taken huge strides off the field, but that’s not been mirrored on the pitch.
“I’m not concerned. We work very hard and I don’t think, looking at the players and the performances, that we’re a million miles away.
“In this division games are always tight. We’ve come away to a team who were fourth in the table before the game, and I thought we were the better side.
“There’s a lot of belief in our team and we’re playing quite well. I’m confident we’ll win games of football and soon start climbing the league table.”
However, Freedman admitted that his players need to improve their focus and to start taking the chances that fall to them if they are to remedy their problems.
“We had our opportunity with the penalty and we didn’t take it. I feel that if that penalty had gone in, we would have gone on to win the game.
“We created three or four other opportunities in the second-half and right now we have to take them.
“The lads are not hiding from their responsibilities, but we’ve got to make sure that we concentrate for 95 minutes. We gave away a goal.
“We can’t keep on calling ourselves unlucky. We’ve got to make sure we have that mentality to take an opportunity when it comes and that we are fully committed in our defending.”
Image courtesy Bolton Wanderers FC, via YouTube, with thanks
