The Real Change that Bolton Wanderers Needs

Digital radio. Microwave ovens. The iPod. Green packets for salt and vinegar crisps. Blu Ray. Wings (the band The Beatles could have been). Sewers. Hovis Best of Both. Netflix. The artist formerly known as Prince. The smoking ban. Air conditioning. Cadbury's Marvellous Creations.

Change is good. Embrace it.

It's also in the air at Bolton Wanderers. A new stadium name. An interim chairman. Two potential takeover bids. An outbound owner with a willingness to wipe up to £170m in debt. And yet one crucial change remains a topic for debate. A change that, in the short term, this club craves. And that change is the sacking of Neil Lennon.

There will be some Wanderers fans out there taking their weekly bath in front of the coal fire, playing a Johnny Mathis LP and chewing tobacco that will not enjoy this notion. These are the people that fear change, that wish for a return to Jimmy Hill on Match of the Day and the 2-3-5 formation. It's my job to convince those people out there that you are wrong. Showers are brilliant, Johnny Mathis is unlistenable, and 2-3-5 is a rogue formation at best. In addition, Neil Lennon belongs alongside these trinkets: the past.

Neil Lennon has shown no evidence of being prepared for an eventuality of this kind. If I hear his name and the word Barcelona in the same sentence again, I'll commit a crime. And I don't mean refusing to pay my TV license. I mean refusing to pay my TV license after two warning letters. That's right, two.

Lennon is an inexperienced, tactically limited and uninspiring football manager, surviving at the minute on reputation alone. One previous job in the easiest division in European football. Imagine dropping Swansea into League One and being tasked with the job of winning the league.

A job that even Lennon could do. He's already done it. It's called the Celtic job. What he can't do is prepare a team for a relegation scrap, and he's proving it week in, week out.

I've scoured the globe for pro-Lennon Wanderers fans (I found two at LoV towers and gave up there) and they provided me with three questions to answer. I'm tasked with convincing them that they need to embrace the change we crave.

The new manager will have the same players at his disposal. Who's to say a new manager will turn things around?

Simple. The short answer is Jürgen Klopp.

Anyone blessed enough to watch Liverpool's annihilation of Man City at the weekend can see the effect that a new manager can have.

We saw it with our three previous managers: Coyle, Freedman and Lennon all gave the club a short term "bounce". In the long term, it's led us nowhere. If anything, it's taken us backwards. However, right now we need a short term fix. As it stands, we're down. We have to roll the dice.

It could be an Malky Mackay move, it might get us nowhere.

But we have to take that chance, because as it stands, we're down. A short term turnaround in form might just get us back into a position where we are in with a chance of staying up, which is more than we have at the minute.

The new manager would have the same (or worse) financial restrictions. How are they expected to do more with less?

I disagree initially with the "same (or worse)" assertion in the question. We have no idea what the financial situation of the club may be after the takeover is complete, assuming it does happen.

When I think of clubs that have experienced a change at the very top, most of them have been better off. Derby, Leicester, Watford, Southampton, Bournemouth.

There are the Nottingham Forests and Leeds Uniteds of this world that have not seen any improvement, but we can't be sure of where we'll be until the new owners take charge. It could be that we find ourselves with funding at our disposal. In that case, it's an attractive proposition for any potential new gaffer. I was holding out for Paul Lambert, but that ship has sailed.

A Karl Robinson or Brian McDermott could well benefit from additional funds. As could Lennon, but I don't think he has the dressing room any longer. The players just aren't performing for him. Even so, would you trust Neil Lennon with money? The man who signed Emile Heskey, Gary Madine, Shola Ameobi and Derik Osede?

We can get rid of 20 or so football players, or one manager. We all know which one will be cheaper and quicker.

What difference does a manager realistically make?

In reality, a sizeable difference. A manager that can come across to the press as infallible, to the players as all knowing and the fans as all powerful can make the world of difference. Look at Big Sam. He managed a team that at first had no right to be in the Premier League.

And he kept them there.

I'll once again make reference to my mate Kloppo on Merseyside.

A different planet of football, granted, but we've seen how a charismatic and knowledgable manager can make a team of also-rans look like world beaters. Now, we're not going to beat Man City 4-1 in my lifetime, but on a smaller scale, a new man at the helm can turn a 0-0 draw at home to Bristol City into a comfortable 2-0 win.

And these are the results we need to ensure that we don't fall through the trap door in May, because right now, we've got one foot in it.