Farwell to friends (From The Bolton News)

Farwell to friends

9:09am Saturday 26th April 2008

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THE Reebok will be a hive of transfer activity this summer, regardless of what division Wanderers end up in.

Gary Megson will use the close season to put his personal stamp on the squad he inherited last October and the chances are that a number of players who have become familiar faces at the Reebok in recent years, are likely to be on their way.

Jussi Jaaskelainen, Ivan Campo and Stelios Giannakopoulos are all out of contract while El-Hadji Diouf has already said he wants out, even if they do survive in the Premiership.

Others, who have been marginalised since Megson replaced Sammy Lee - notably strikers Daniel Braaten and Heidar Helguson and midfielder Blerim Dzemaili - could also be deemed surplus to requirements while loan status offers neither Mikel Alonso or even Danny Guthrie any guarantees. The Spaniard certainly looks like he has no future at the Reebok.

The manager, understandably, is refusing to comment on speculation regarding who will be going or staying and who will be coming in. The fight for Premiership survival, he insists, is all-consuming.

But he hinted at a summer shake-up when he spoke of his desire to put his own hallmark on the club rather than being judged on his record with a squad made up almost entirely of players recruited by his predecessors, Lee and Sam Allardyce.

"What any manager wants is to come to a club on day one of pre-season and go from there," he said. "Then you can shape the training and the squad the way you want. I would like that opportunity."

All the indications are that he will get it.

For, while the Wanderers hierarchy have made no comment on the manager's future, the indications are that 48-year-old Megson will be in charge for the start of next season.

Whether he is preparing for life in the Barclays Premier League or the Coca-Cola Championship will be determined by results over the next fortnight. Clearly, that will influence his transfer policy and could dictate whether Wanderers are prepared to negotiate a satisfactory outcome, or instance, of Jaaskelainen's contract wrangle, which has dragged on now for the best part of a year.

"We can't do that until we know where we are," the manager has said repeatedly to explain why the club's longest serving player has been left in limbo.

Relegation is still a distinct possibility, of course, but Megson's bosses factored that into their reasoning when they appointed him in the first place, believing that, if the worst came to the worst, his record at West Brom suggested he had the credentials to get teams into the Premiership.

That belief was echoed by Leicester owner and chairman, Milan Mandaric, who was scathing of Wanderers for taking his manager, just six weeks after he had taken the reins at the Walkers Stadium.

"I hired a proper guy in Gary Megson," the Foxes supremo reflected, lamenting Leicester's struggles in the Championship. "He knows his business and has tremendous capabilities of getting teams out of this division. If Bolton do go down, Megson will get them back up. He's firm, disciplined, organised. He gets the best out of players.

"I know my supporters weren't fond of him and he's not going to play the prettiest football. I can't stand the long-ball stuff. But at the end of the day, I desperately want to get out of this division. I would work with the devil if he could get me what I wanted."

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