Following Bolton’s 2-0 loss to Newcastle United, manager Owen Coyle has issued his players a warning that there will be changes if individual errors continue.
Quickfire goals from substitute Hatem Ben Arfa and Demba Ba gave the Magpies their first victory in seven games and a much-needed boost to keep on the heels of Liverpool and Arsenal.
Both goals saw the Trotters lose the ball in their own half from unforced mistakes, leaving Coyle frustrated and looking for change in his side’s performances.
He told reporters: “A mixture of frustration, anger, whatever you call it. We’ve given the ball away under no pressure. Take nothing away from the finish – the cut-back, the finish from the lad [Ben Arfa], that was exquisite.
“At 1-0 there’s still 20 minutes left, you’re looking for a bit of character and we had that from a few. But truth be told not enough, whether one or two were fragile, there’s no need for that coming off the back of a big win. Then 90 seconds, two minutes later it’s a horrible mistake, that then gives you a load to do. The two goals are self-inflicted and that’s hard to take.
“Bottom line is there’s one or two that have tried to play through, I’ve chopped and changed, tried to give a vat of freshness, but there comes a point when we’re getting one or two back off injury or some of the kids are ready then so be it, because I’m not going to stand and watch the same mistakes costing us every week.”
Bolton’s midweek fixture saw them narrowly defeat fellow relegation battlers Blackburn Rovers, with Coyle desperately unhappy to see another opportunity to win squandered.
He added: “It’s frustrating because we’ve let a great opportunity pass us by in terms of getting back-to-back wins and we’ve let ourselves down again and in front of our own fans, the biggest crowd of the season. If you’d have said to me before the game whose going to win it, I may be biased, but I’d have said us. That win would have put us amongst five or six teams and made it very interesting.”
Newcastle manager Alan Pardew meanwhile was delighted to get a win after nearly two months without a win.
He told reporters: “Yes we are [delighted], because we put ourselves under pressure with the West Brom result, so it was important today that we give a more disciplined performance and we did that.
“We felt that the last two games that four points would have been really pleasing, we didn’t manage to get anything with West Brom, but we got three valuable ones today.
“In the Premier League you don’t want to create pressure for yourselves as a team by having a winless run that we were on. We felt that things didn’t really work for us in that period, but we had round pegs in round holes today.”