Former Bolton Wanderers captain Kevin Davies has said that former manager Dougie Freedman is partly responsible for the troubles faced by the club this season. Bolton are at the bottom of the Championship after 11 games this season. The prospect of relegation has become a distinct possibility for the club with more than £ 150 million debt. This could even push them into administration especially given that the Premier League parachute payments have grown very little. Davies, who was the captain of the club for several years before leaving in 2013, says that Freedman instilled a bad atmosphere in the team.
The 2-1 defeat against Bournemouth was the fifth consecutive defeat in all competitions for Bolton and it also proved to be the final straw for the owners, who decided to pull the plug on Freedman. Neil Lennon has been confirmed as the new manager of the club. He will be hoping to improve the form when he takes over the club for the first match against Birmingham City. Lennon will straightaway be aiming for three points given that Birmingham have not been good at home for a long time. Davies has compared the atmosphere at Bolton when they were managed by Allardyce to that under Freedman.
"I don't want to come across as bitter, but I think he created a bad atmosphere. It became a sterile place. What the club stood for when Sam Allardyce was there was the fans, the togetherness. It was a great club, a family club, and it felt like that had been ripped out. It wasn't a great place to be. I didn't really enjoy training. There was a line between the staff and the players and the people at the academy. There were factions around the club,” said the striker, who was a Bolton player for a decade.