STEVEN Schumacher has issued a challenge to wingers Thierry Gale and ibrahim Cissoko to show they have the “killer instinct” to command a regular start in the front line.
Wanderers are facing up to the fact that Derby County loanee Corey Blackett-Taylor is unlikely to play again this season after suffering a tear in his upper thigh.
Gale and Cissoko have both featured regularly for Bolton this season but the arrival of Blackett-Taylor in January did impact their minutes on the pitch.
Though Gale started recent games against Exeter, Wycombe and Doncaster he had featured from the start in just one of the previous nine matches in the league.
Cissoko’s appearances have been less frequent, and the Dutchman has only started twice, against Reading and Northampton, since the turn of the year.
Both wingers have scored some spectacular goals this season but Schumacher is looking for them to sniff out more chances inside the penalty box to help the team get back on track with a win at Port Vale this weekend.
“They have got to take the role on now,” said the Bolton boss, having revealed the extent of Blackett-Taylor’s injury. “Thierry has got seven goals this season and Ibbi (Cissoko) has got a couple too from that side and at one stage I was leaving one of them out of the squad completely but now they have got the chance to step up.
“We have to start finding more ways to score and it can’t always be the strikers. I am not going to start pointing fingers at people but as a team we have got to improve.
“Sometimes when you play with two strikers one of them can end up in the wider areas and it happened a couple of times (against Doncaster) with Johnny Kenny. He put some brilliant crosses into the box, and they have got to be the winger’s chances, they have got to have that killer instinct and go and score them, not just the strikers.”
Chance conversion has been a hot topic this season at Wanderers, and the only club with a lower ratio of shots to goals this season are the one they will face at Vale Park this weekend.
Jon Brady’s Vale have converted just 6.98 of their shots into goals, with Bolton (8.54) and Doncaster (8.60) following close behind.
Schumacher has been working with some of his players individually to try and improve their yield.
“It is one of the things that we work on continuously,” he said. “We speak all the time to the wide players, in fact I had a session yesterday with Rob Apter on his own.
“I have done it with Thierry, I've done it with Ibbi all season, and I always say that 100 per cent of the shots that go over the bar don't go in. Just make the keeper make a save.
“You just never know, a deflection, I scored loads of deflections in my career, it was brilliant, just keep the shot low.
“The big chance that Thierry had (against Doncaster), he leans back, it goes over the bar and we get nothing from it.
“It has got to go in under the bar – there is no chance if it goes over.”
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