NEIL Lennon fears Wanderers could be forced into a fire sale in January if the club fails to find new ownership.

In a year where the Whites boss has already had to reluctantly wave goodbye to the likes of Chung-Yong Lee and Tim Ream, the continuing financial crisis at the Macron Stadium is such that more cuts to the playing staff could be a necessity.

Young star Zach Clough and midfielder Mark Davies would be two of the more saleable assets in Lennon’s squad – and although the club is taking every precaution to avoid that doomsday scenario, the manager is realistic about what may happen if a cash backer does not materialise.

“We may be forced to sell players,” he told The Bolton News. “That may be a route we go down to bring money in, although not one that we would like, clearly.”

Wanderers’ chief hope at this point is financial advisor Trevor Birch, who has helped sort out even more complicated financial matters at the likes of Portsmouth and Leeds United.

The 57-year-old insolvency specialist has been brought in personally by Eddie Davies to bring about a swift conclusion to the takeover talks, which took a slight twist on Thursday night when it emerged former midfielder Stelios Giannakopoulos had tabled an offer alongside the much-publicised bid from the Sports Shield consortium.

Neither have been accepted by Davies at this point in time. But Lennon has faith that Birch’s involvement will bring results quickly and allow him some finances to buy players in January.

“Trevor is very experienced, he’s looked after clubs who have been in trouble before but he’ll speak to me if and when needed,” he said. “At the moment he’s speaking to people who are busy trying to buy the club and that’s out of my control.

“He’s a firefighter. The deal he was involved in with Roman Abramovich and Chelsea was probably a one-off. I think he said the negotiations lasted about 15 minutes.

“The majority of his negotiations with new investment take time and that isn’t really on our side at the moment.

“We would obviously like to get new owners in before January because then we could spend a bit of money and strengthen the squad.”

Worse still than the prospect of being forced to sell players would be for Birch to draw the conclusion that administration is the only option at Wanderers.

It is understood the possibility of that happening remains extremely remote – Davies would effectively write off any money he would be due from the sale of the club – but nevertheless Lennon was asked what it would mean to him at his weekly press conference.

“It would be huge,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a scenario we even want to contemplate. Everyone is working to make sure that’s something that we avoid.

“There would be a horrendous amount of cuts and penalty points as well, which would leave us with even more of a mountain to climb.

“I don’t think anyone wants that here.”