STEVEN Schumacher insists Wanderers won’t carry with them baggage from their weekend defeat at Blackpool when they line up at Wigan Athletic tomorrow night.
The Bolton boss insists his players are “in a good place” despite losing their last three games in League One and dropping to eighth spot, two points outside the play-offs.
Drawing from his experiences in Plymouth’s promotion season a couple of years ago, Schumacher has warned his players of the ups and downs that are in store – and how it is possible to recover from major setbacks.
He was in charge when Argyle were beaten 4-0 by Bolton in the final of the Papa Johns Trophy final at Wembley but managed to restabilise form and clinch the title with 101 points.
And he says he sees the same sort of resilience in his dressing room as they head into a game against a fierce local rival, against whom the club has not won in a decade.
“I don’t think the players have had to come in doubting what we are asking them to do, I look at them and I don’t sense it,” he told The Bolton News.
“It can be tough for morale when a coach is saying something to you and the players don’t believe it. My players believe in what we are saying, they see evidence of what we are doing.
“They know we are playing well. We will keep showing them areas and little details where we can improve, and they understand all that, they are a good group.
“They accept it. And if they didn’t, if they disagreed, they’d say ‘you’re talking rubbish.’ We all have to stick together.”
Wanderers’ last win against Wigan was in the FA Cup in January 2015 – and their record against local rivals has remained poor for the last few years.
A sold-out allocation of more than 4,000 fans will travel with them to the Brick Community Stadium hoping for a boost in morale, and Schumacher has promised his players will be up for the challenge.
“It is a huge game,” he said. “I would have said the same to the lads if we had won or drawn (at Blackpool), you have to make sure you are ready to go and to compete, fight for everything, because it really is a massive game, and more so now that we have lost three in a row.
“It’s not only for pride, passion or because it’s a local rival, we need points now because we will fall further away from the play-off mix, and the further away you fall the harder it becomes to get back into it.
“I showed them a presentation on Thursday morning, and I said: ‘The last nine games, this is going to be like a roller coaster. There'll be ups and downs.
“If we have your bad results, no problem. Get on with the next one because no team is going to win every single game, and we need to make sure that we pick enough points up that we need to get into the play-offs and that's the aim.
"Before we played Bristol Rovers, we were saying if we win these next two we'd go up automatically, the lads were in with a shout and then it shows you how quick football can turn."
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