FORMER Wanderers defender Sam Ricketts has revealed he does not think Wanderers tried hard enough the day the club toppled out of the Premier League at Stoke City.

Asked what the low point of his playing career had been, the current Coventry skipper pointed to the 2-2 draw at the Britannia Stadium in 2012, which condemned Owen Coyle’s side to relegation.

Popular Wales international Ricketts played in a range of defensive positions for the Whites in a four-year career at Bolton, which ended abruptly when they dropped into the Championship.

And the consequent financial problems at Wanderers have left Rickett’s feeling regretful the team did not do more to beat Stoke, which would have relegated QPR.

“It was the day that Man City scored two goals in injury time to win the league,” he said. “We were relying on them to beat QPR and if we had won at Stoke, we would have stayed up.

“I just think that in the latter stages of the game, When we were getting reports back that QPR were winning 2-1 going into injury time, I look back and I don’t know if we tried hard enough to get a winning goal in the last five minutes.

“I’m not sure that we envisaged Man City coming back in the last five minutes and winning the league like they did, so we didn’t have the mad finish we should have had. If we had managed to get another goal, we wouldn’t have got relegated.

“It was a shame because you see the knock-on effect at Bolton now and that probably started by losing out on Premier League money. After that, different things happen over the years.

“It’s a club which I really enjoyed being at. It’s the longest I’ve been at any club, four years, and it was a club that I didn’t really want to leave when I did. I’d like to see Bolton back in the Premier League if possible one day.”