The future of several Bolton players is a major doubt since they are either out of contract or the club is unwilling to spend huge amounts of money to renew their deals. Manager Dougie Freedman has his work cut out in order to convince as much as five players to stay at the Reebok stadium beyond this season. It also remains to be seen if he will be willing to keep those players considering that some of them have been suffering from numerous injury problems. As a club, Bolton are in financial meltdown after they recently revealed debts of about £ 160 million.

Getting to the Premier league will help solve the financial problems to a great extent, but the club are also aware that they cannot overspend in the hopes of achieving this dream. Freedman will also have to assess the futures of two senior players, who have spent time away from the club in the hope of getting first-team football. Freedman says that he is likely to hold onto most of his current players with the likes of Zat Knight being offered new deals. Stuart Holden and Chris Eagles are some of the other players coming to the end of their deals.

Rumours have suggested that Freedman may look into selling some key names like Sordell, but he has rejected those rumours.

“The plan won’t be ripped up. There will be a natural progression because there are contracts up, some players will be coming back from loans too. There will be a natural turnaround and it will enable me to bring in more players I think can cope with the Championship. I have three or four targets that are already lined-up but there will still be a good nucleus of players here,” said the Bolton manager, whose team are 17^th in the table.

Bolton Wanderers recently managed to end a poor run of form at home by managing to win against Millwall in the Championship. The team had gone without a victory in the opening 10 matches of the season. Despite this, they have managed to collect 11 points as a result of recent form away from home. Manager Dougie Freedman has been targeting a home victory for a long time and he was finally pleased to achieve this victory. This was the first victory for the club at the Reebok stadium since April, which made it all the more special.

Bolton made a poor start to the season, but this victory means that they have now won two games in succession. They are undefeated in the last five matches and this run of form has helped them move into the 17th position. They are already five points clear of the relegation zone, which will be good news for Freedman. The fact that they have a buffer between them and the relegation zone will relieve some of the pressure on players, which in turn has been responsible for the poor run of form. Freedman has said that the team are slightly better tactically than they were at the start of the season.

“We’ve stuck together, we tried not to get too down on ourselves and we worked hard on the training ground. We had a disappointing start and let’s not shy away from that. I’m not satisfied at all with that start, but we’ve taken it on the chin. We’re tactically a bit better now and that’s resulted in a few good performances and a good few points, which I think we’ve deserved,” said the Bolton manager to the BBC after the match on Saturday. He says that he is pleased with the progress.

Bolton have made a poor start to the Championship season and this has increased the pressure on the manager Dougie Freedman. There has been a lot of speculation that Freedman could be relieved of his duties before this weekend, but the manager has confirmed that he will be staying in charge. Bolton have made one of the worst starts to a season after managing to not win any of the opening seven matches. As a result, they are rooted to the bottom of the table. At the start of the campaign, they were expected to be one of the challengers for at least a play-off place.

Now, avoiding relegation will be the key for Bolton as they were only recently relegated from the Premier league. One of the major problems for Freedman has been lack of any transfer money, but he is remaining confident that the club will be able to put a promotion challenge from this position. Bolton became an established Premier league club under the regime of Sam Allardyce, but the club has since fallen back into the bottom divisions of English football. Another relegation would be disastrous for the club primarily in the financial sense.

Freedman has said that he has seen enough from training to suggest that the form will improve.

“I see a different attitude with the fans right now and that is why I am trying to talk them through what we are trying to do and where this football club is at. This is their club and right now it is going through a period that it hasn’t had to face for 10, 11, 12 years while they were in the Premier League. There isn’t a magic formula. We have to slowly turn things around and concentrate on the future. And I don’t think we are a million miles away – that is me speaking straight from the heart,” said Freedman.