ROCHDALE. We never seem to be away from the place as this was the fourth time we played them this season and the third time at the Crown Oil Arena.

Things didn’t start too well as the Lancaster Whites coach was seriously delayed by the M6 closure for the dismantling of a road bridge. But they battled through and we managed a couple of pints of Wainwrights in the Hare and Hounds in Bamford.

All the pre-match talk was about which players had left, which players had come in, what team we might be able to cobble together and what our chances were of getting a result against a team we’ve already lost three times to this season.

Programme purchases are a must these days to give us an idea of who is playing for us. Keith Hill made several enforced changes and started with two of the new loanees, Ethan Hamilton in midfield and Toto Nsiala in defence. It was almost like starting again as a team and from that aspect, we did okay.

The management must have had little or no time to work with the newcomers and a lack of cohesion was apparent at times but we put a spell together in the second half where we hit the woodwork and might have snatched something from this match. Hamilton was particularly impressive and that augurs well for the rest of this season.

It’s been a very dramatic week as Keith Hill and David Flitcroft have had to sort out the next phase of their rebuilding job.

They have had to accept loan players being recalled by their parent clubs, make hard decisions on whether to renew loan periods or extend contracts and to look at recruiting new players within the limitations of any outstanding embargoes from the EFL and financial restrictions set by the current owners in line with their recovery plans.

I suspect there’s not a lot of wriggle room there but I believe that, with time and patience, that we will get there. It was never going to be a short-term project to rebuild Bolton Wanderers on and off the field. There are still another 18 days left of this transfer window, so let’s see what other deals can be conjured up.

We’ve got to hope that we don’t lose any of our promising youngsters or if we do, we get a decent price.