Few rays of light for beleaguered Bolton

NO goal-threat, a defender who pleads to come off at half-time at Old Trafford and now rumours of a split in the dressing room. Bolton’s fate looks clearer with each passing week.

Just a few days after Abdoulaye Meite raised the white flag in his personal relegation fight by asking to come off in the 2-0 defeat at Manchester United, there is now talk that the performance on and off the pitch of El-Hadji Diouf, not a character normally associated with harmony, was the main topic of discussion in a meeting between the Bolton players.

More importantly, however, is a chronic lack of goals that has seen them fail to hit the net in their last four matches and not win in the Premier League since Reading were beaten 2-0 at the start of February.