Source: Team_Talk
Bolton must splash cash - Megson
The Trotters completed their eighth successive Premier League campaign on Sunday, free from the anxiety of a last-day scrap to avoid the drop, if also some way off securing a European berth, the high point of their latest stay in the top flight.
However, Megson is acutely aware of how perilously close Bolton were to being sucked in.
Having used only 18 players all season, he knows all it would have taken were long-term injuries to a couple of key men, Jussi Jaaskelainen and Kevin Davies for instance, to leave his team in real trouble.
It is why he will implore owner Eddie Davies and chairman Phil Gartside to ease the purse strings that have been pulled so tight to enable Bolton, if not to improve on their excellent 13th-placed finish, then at least to match it next term.
"I hope it doesn't come across as threatening and stamping my feet," reflected Megson.
"We have done the job they wanted doing. We have now taken it right the way down. Now it needs to go forward.
"We need to bring players in. It has to be done."
Megson's assessment of his squad is stark. Three loan players have been released because they were not up to scratch.
Chris Basham, a second-half substitute at Manchester City on Sunday, was returned by Rochdale earlier this season because he was not good enough for them.
Davies and Gartside may look around and feel Hull are in a more perilous position, while at least one of the three promoted teams will almost certainly be heading straight back down next season.
Yet who would have expected Middlesbrough, a club of similar size and scope to Bolton, to be plummeting through the trapdoor this time around. The haphazard management of a rival the size of Newcastle cannot be relied upon again either.
"We have the nucleus of a squad," said Megson, who in fairness has done a commendable job since rescuing a team that was heading for disaster under Sammy Lee last season.
"But as we stand now we have three goalkeepers and 15 or 16 outfield players. As a group, it is not the quality you need in the Premier League.
"I am not criticising anybody and there is no envy looking anywhere else. We have got what we have got.
"But we can't go through another season like this."
