Neil Lennon bemoaned his Bolton side’s inconsistency after Saturday’s home defeat to Huddersfield, saying the display was typical of why his team find themselves at the bottom of the league.
Wanderers failed to capitalise on last week’s victory against Blackburn, conceding two second-half goals to the Terriers which left them rooted to the bottom.
And Lennon said that an inability to play well for a run of games – or even for a full game – means his side will struggle to avoid relegation.
“We need to find consistency of performance, we played really well on Monday and then our levels dropped and that’s why we find ourselves in the position that we’re in,” he said.
“We need to score when we’re on top, for 25-30 minutes we were dominant, and that’s the position we find ourselves in.
“We need to get a goal up otherwise the confidence or the energy levels seem to drop.
“Once Huddersfield got a goal you could see the body language of the players wane a little bit, but we just seemed to run out of steam mentally in the second half.
“We were on top, and when you’re on top in the position we’re in you have to score, and that’s been the problem all season, it’s not like we’re failing to create chances.”
Attention now turns to Saturday’s FA Cup tie at Eastleigh, with Wanderers looking to avoid another embarrassing chapter in a dreadful season.
And the significance of the tie was not lost on Lennon, who confirmed that his side will travel down south with a full-strength squad.
“We can’t afford to make changes – we’ll ty and go as strong as we can because it’s important.
“I don’t see the point in resting players with a full week ahead of us, I know we’ve got games coming up but it’ll be a difficult game and we want to be in the next round so we’ll have to go as strong as we can.”
Image courtesy of BWFC via YouTube, with thanks.
