JAY Spearing is the last player you would expect to give up on Wanderers’ survival chances, and true to type he is refusing to accept relegation is inevitable.

The Whites may have dropped 10 points off safety after yet another miserable day on the road at Leeds United but the spiky midfielder baulks at suggestions there is no hope left with 11 games to go.

“We don’t want to be bottom of the table, we need to get ready for the next game,” he told The Bolton News. “We don’t want to get relegated. No-one wants that.

“I keep repeating myself but this one has gone. We need to keep fighting for what we can until that last game of the season.”

“As players we have to take responsibility for this because we’re the ones out there for 90 minutes. Of course we’re disappointed but I’m going to stick up for those lads in there because we haven’t been going out there and getting pushed over, we are fighting as hard as we can.

“For the last four or five games we’ve played really well, played good football, dominated, got into the final third, but sadly we’re not taking them and it’s coming back to bite us in the backside.”

The trouble is that the former captain’s rhetoric, however heartfelt, becomes rather meaningless the further into the mire Wanderers sink.

This was a third successive defeat on a day that relegation rivals Charlton, Rotherham and MK Dons all registered three points.

Spearing believes the club’s problems were summed up by their inability to get ahead at Elland Road.

“I don’t know how many chances we had, how many corners, how much of the ball – it was enough to win the game,” he said.

“They had one shot on target in the second half and they scored with it. That sums it up.

“We are letting teams off the hook when we are on top.

“At this stage of the season all we should be caring about is points. I don’t care if I’m playing well, or if no-one is, we just need points.

“The trouble is, I think we are playing well. We are just not finishing our chances and if we don’t get that right soon then that’s it.

“We have two big games at home and we need to win them, end of.”

One of the most stormy seasons in Wanderers’ history reaches a crescendo today as the club heads to the High Court for a third time. If a takeover is completed and administration averted then the last quarter of the campaign might yet be completed in some normality.

Spearing has played down the madness that has enveloped the club in the last six months and says the players cannot use it as an excuse.

“Personally no, it’s something I can’t deal with because I don’t understand what’s going on. It isn’t my criteria,” he said.

“My profession is going out there and trying to play well week in, week out.

“There may be other lads who have it in the back of their mind, I can’t speak for them.

“I know I am repeating myself but we have to concentrate on what is happening on the field, not off it.”