View From The Town End: Bolton Wanderers

Today's thoughts come from Dan over at our fellow SB Nation site, Lion of Vienna Suite.

How would you sum up Bolton's season so far?

Err... Well in a word - shite. It's been awful, it really has. By the time Saturday's fixture rolls around it will have been over two months, 70 days, since our last and only victory this season. We sit second bottom, three points and a four goal swing from safety. The dreaded injury curse has returned, as we've pretty much had a player leave the pitch due to injury in about seven of our last eight games. We can't score, we can no longer defend and we can't bring players in to rectify that. It's troublesome times at the Macron.

The club continue to be dogged by off field problems regarding debt and ownership. How much do you think it's impacted the club on the pitch?

Massively. Don't get me wrong, Neil Lennon is responsible for what happens on the pitch and he has to be held accountable for some of the mistakes he had made, but it's near on impossible to blame him completely when his hands haven't only been tied behind his back - they've been cut off completely. We literally don't have a single penny in the pot to bring players in any more. Just this week a loan move for Wolves' Rajiv van La Parra fell through as we don't have the funds. Lennon's trying his best, but there isn't an awful lot he can do anymore. Hopefully the much muted takeover with Dean Holdsworth at the helm will actually come off, but we never get that fortunate these days.

Any fond memories of games between the sides that don't involve Play-Off Finals?

Nope, just that wonderful game. I'm not going to say anything that will take your mind off it.

Any not so fond ones?

You kind of stuck seven goals past us two season ago and I must admit that isn't exactly looked upon fondly. However, last season's 1-1 draw at our place particularly sticks with me mostly because, please pardon the following, of that utter twat Jamie Mackie. I've never been so infuriated at a player in my life. After a game in which we saw three of better players leave the pitch due to injury and had been very unfairly treated by the officials throughout, Mackie decided to act the joker and fein injury right in front of a corner of Bolton fans after his last minute injury. He then hurled some abuse at the seething crowd for good measure. My blood is boiling just thinking about it.

Who should Reading be most concerned about on Saturday?

I genuinely let out a laugh when I read this question, and then a deep, depressing sigh. No one really. Every player on our team, aside from two defenders, a goalkeeper and a defensive midfielder, are bang out of form and are desperately low on confidence. Max Clayton, who recently returned from a cruciate injury, can be a danger with his pace if he plays and surprisingly Shola Ameobi is surprisingly useful. However, we just have no cutting edge and probably won't worry you much at all.

Which Reading players are you not looking forward to facing?

The better question would probably be which players am I looking to facing as it would be a whole lot short list, as there would be no one on it. Aside from maybe ol' Ali for reunions sake. You, for reasons I struggle to comprehend, are now suddenly brimming with a wealth of attacking talent. Vydra, Sa, John, Piazon, Quinn, Blackman(!) McCleary and so on, all capable of ripping our defence to pieces, and they undoubtedly will.

Finally what's your score prediction?

You have lots of great attackers and we're away. You're going to batter us. 3-0.

Cheers again to Dan, plus a quick note to say all of these answers were obtained before the Clarke drama unfolded. You can follow the chaps from LoV on Twitter @LionOfViennaSte