NATHAN Baxter has had to make some adjustments in the last couple of months at Wanderers, but he remains confident his season can end on a positive note.
The Bolton keeper found himself out the starting line-up for a dozen league games, and then saw the departure of keeper coach Matt Gilks when he departed the Toughsheet Stadium along with Ian Evatt and his backroom staff at the end of January.
It was a time of upheaval for the former Chelsea man, who to that point had been a settled and relatively undisputed number one at the club.
But after returning to the side and stating his hope to win another contract with the Whites to stay beyond this summer, Baxter believes he can help the club to achieve its promotion aim in the remaining nine games.
Andy Fairman has stepped up from helping Bolton’s youth goalkeepers to work with Baxter, Luke Southwood, Joel Coleman and Luke Hutchinson since Steven Schumacher’s arrival.
Former coach Gilks, now at Barnsley, had been an important figure for Baxter since he arrived at Bolton in the summer of 2023 but he says Fairman’s input during his time out of the team was also invaluable.
“Gillo was brilliant,” he told The Bolton News. “I had a close friendship with him, in fact I’d say it went beyond the normal goalkeeper relationship, he was a good friend. And I have had that with a lot of people I work with, good coaches, Tony Warner at Accrington Stanley was one.
“I think it makes the job easier when you have that.
“Andy (Fairman) has helped me through this stage. I've not spent a lot of time in my career on the bench. I don’t think I have ever spent this long on the bench.
“And it can be frustrating, but he's helped me work on stuff and he's helped me keep going and be ready. He has done his part. Obviously, it will take time to build the relationship that I had with Gillo, but I'm sure if we win the play-off final at Wembley, we'll be out together enjoying that!”
Baxter spent most of last season as Bolton’s number one and though he missed some key games through injury at the turn of last year, his first season with the club was largely considered a personal success.
The addition of Luke Southwood to the squad in the summer brought an extra level of competition, and the Northern Ireland international got himself ahead of Baxter for the first time at the tail end of Evatt’s stay. That, admits the 26-year-old was a mental test, which made him analyse what he could do to improve his game.
“It has given me something to think about,” he said. “When I went to Hull City, I knew that I would start on the bench. It took 10-15 games for me to come in and start. But once I started, it was only injuries that ever kept me out.
“It was obviously frustrating. Obviously, the old manager and the old goalie coach would tell everyone in the press that I'm the best goalie in the league. I know that I need to keep showing that every day and it starts fresh now with the new manager.
“Obviously, I'm grateful that he put me in. I think it's a good sign that we have so many good players across all of the positions. It's not just me.
“There are so many players that have not been on the bench, have been injured, not been making the squad. And they are players who were in a team that got 90-odd points last year, so I think it’s a good sign.”
Wanderers go to Blackpool this weekend looking to pick up their play-off push after back-to-back defeats against Bristol Rovers and Stockport County. They have not lost three games in a row in the league for more than three years.
Despite the pre-break blip there remains a confident mood around the camp, and Baxter feels some of it can be explained by a more flexible tactical approach taken by the new boss Schumacher.
“It is a really exciting chapter for the fans, the way that the gaffer has come in,” he said. “I think it's definitely easier for me with what's being asked of the goalkeeper. There isn’t as much pressure on the goalkeeper in the way that you have to play.
“I think that's really positive. I think going into the play-offs, that's huge. I can just concentrate on keeping the ball out of the net rather than having to do all the other stuff that I used to be told to do.
“That's frustrating for the supporters because quite a lot of the time it's what we're being asked to do. But I get it. It's positive now.
“I'm just really excited for the end of the season. We're still in a good position.”
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