Manager speaks ahead of the weekend's visit of Leeds United
Dougie Freedman says he and the Bolton Wanderers players are ready to turn their season around, starting with this weekend’s visit of Leeds United.
Bolton currently sit at the foot of the Championship table after an indifferent start to the campaign.
And ahead of a Reebok double header that sees both Leeds United and Derby County visit BL6 in the space of four days, Freedman believes the mood surrounding the players over the course of the international break will help spur the side on.
“After the Blackburn result there’s been a bit of a strange atmosphere in and around the team over the course of the international break,” he said in his pre-match press conference.
“For the first three or four days after that game things were very sheepish and I wanted to try and keep that for as long as I could. The players understood exactly how disappointed they should be after what happened at Blackburn.
“Within that, over the last ten days we’ve built up to a position where we are very tuned into what we are doing. The atmosphere is now one of ‘let’s turn this around’.
“We’ve got a very determined group and we’ve been doing a lot of work on the finer details and how we can play more as a team. We need to make sure we’re both attacking and defending as a team and not getting caught out on the counter.
Chung-Yong Lee, Medo Kamara, Jermaine Beckford and Adam Bogdan all returned to the club’s training ground on Thursday afternoon following their respective international games.
And the manager added that he would weigh up each individual’s situation before finalising his team selections for the upcoming home games.
Freedman added: “Everyone is fit at this moment and all the players we have available have trained.
“Jermaine Beckford is desperate to get out there and play against his old club this weekend, despite being over in Jamaica this week. I’ve been receiving the texts from him about that ahead of the game.
“I’ve got to look the lads who have been away on international duty in the eye and make sure they are in the right place mentally, then we’ll assess it from there.”