Coyle - You Must Go To Bolton

Owen Coyle/Iain Dowie: The similarities are remarkable. Fantastic motivators, yet tactically very naive: Coyle would be a fool to reject a move to Bolton.
What a crazy thing to say, you might ask: he’s got them up, and with more than half of the season gone, they are 14th, which is perfect for them. However, with no wins in 9 Premiership matches, their position is all of a sudden looking very precarious – and at this rate, they will get relegated.
Just 1 point from 10 away games does, in my opinion, ridicule Phil Mcnulty’s article on the BBC, hailing the Scot as somewhat of a tactical genius. OK, so I wouldn’t expect them to win many away, but he never changes things – and sometimes in the top league you do have to tinker a bit. Burnley playing 4-4-2 away to Arsenal just isn’t going to work, something that Coyle seems unaware of.
So why Bolton: well firstly, their current position of 18th does nothing to justify the squad they have. Megson bought very well - he just couldn’t get players playing for him, which was ultimately why he was sacked. Furthermore, with the league so tight at the moment, Bolton are just 5 points away from the top half – with two games in hand on most teams. In short, I think they will comfortably stay up, whereas Burnley with or without Coyle, will be relegated.
Secondly, Phil Gartside – as much of an idiot as he is, generally sticks by his managers. Allardyce did a remarkable job but was given time, Megson was given over 2 years and in the end it was the fans that really did for him, whilst Sammy Lee was just never cut out for management. He can have this season, where they will stay up, and then rebuild in the summer with decent funds. Bolton are far wealthier than Burnley, and the hard facts are that you can’t progress in the Premiership without any money. Say Burnley had stayed up this year: It would have been like Hull City, who haven’t really progressed at all. In fact I would say that Bolton are the most underacheiving team in the top flight at the moment. They should be in the top half, so even if Coyle does a half decent job, they’ll move up the league fairly quickly. In addition to that, the fans are very keen for him to come (being an Ex-player and that), so they will give him far more time than they gave Megson – again to his advantage.
Back to the Dowie anallargy: and here is what I mean. Dowie got us up almost miraculously which was fantastic. The next season, we got relegated, and the season after that we limped to the playoffs before being thrashed by Watford. Burnley might not have Andy Johnson, but the one trick pony of “motivator” that is now associated with Dowie is something that could come back to haunt Coyle if he stays at Burnley. He needs to move on to get a club that has resources to progress. Whether he is truly a fantastic tactition or not, we’re yet to see. However, if he stays at Burnley his career could well never progress, in the same way that the once highly rated Iain Dowie has only ever gone backwards since leaving Palace.
As for lack of loyalty: well I’m sorry Burnley fans, but your club has reached it’s potential. Bolton is a far bigger club at the moment, and in the cut and thrust world of football management, I don’t think anyone can deny a move that he clearly would love. We all want our managers to stay as long as possible (providing they’re doing well) and Burnley fans only have to look at where they got Coyle from in the first place to realise that it is just one massive food chain.