Swindon 0-1 Bolton Wanderers - One Thing....The Problem Is Our Forwards

Firstly, I am absolutely delighted that Bolton Wanderers have returned to winning ways. It may have been more scrappy than stylish but at this point who cares?

Despite the joy brought by our first league win in forever, and having watched the game in full via the beautiful medium of Sportsmania, I was left with a sense of what might have been.

Normally I would have regaled you all here with five things that I had noticed from the game, however time is short and so is my attention span.

Therefore, the only thing on my mind today is that we have a massive problem with our forwards.

Before going further, I would clarify that by forwards I am specifically referring to Zach Clough, Jamie Proctor, Gary Madine and Keshi Anderson. I class Sammy Ameobi and Max Clayton as attacking midfielders, for the avoidance of any doubt.

I believe that the above named forwards are the problem. Let's go through them one-by-one:

Zach Clough (8 apps, 0 goals)

Our prodigy is struggling. Whilst tidy on the ball, his coolness in front of goal appears to have deserted him.

The missed chance against Swindon Town is one thing, but it's that I can barely think of another chance that he's had in recent weeks is more of an issue to me. Despite our struggles last year he was still our best finisher.

This year he isn't getting into the same positions as often - leading to the sort of snatched shot that the Swindon keeper easily snapped up yesterday.

Jamie Proctor (11 apps, 0 goals)

The less about Proctor the better, at the moment. After a promising pre-season he has been a huge disappointment. His positional awareness is poor and he appears to have little to no interest in playing as a striker.

He has scored in the league cup, in his defence, but nobody cares about that.

Gary Madine (8 apps, 3 goals)

Doing about as well as we expected, Madine has led our frontline well at times, but for the most part is only confirming the thoughts of everyone from last season.

Madine is a big guy, but often gets outmuscled by defenders - too easily, for me.

He is a tall lad as well who, despite winning his fair share of headers, seems to allow the ball to bounce off his head, meaning that there is little to no chance of his fellow attackers making the most of the advantage.

Keshi Anderson (6 apps, 1 goal)

The on-loan Crystal Palace man clearly possesses huge pace, but is being poorly utilised by Bolton Wanderers be that his teammates or manager Phil Parkinson.

Anderson's main threat is that speed, but can you remember any occasions on which the ball has been played into the channels for him to chase? Nope, me neither.

He's a young lad and so there is still time, but the lack of impact made in recent weeks following a very impressive debut gives me cause for concern going forward.

So, as you can see, the lack of goals is a huge issue, which isn't helped by some sloppy attacking play by the support players, including the likes of Ameobi, James Henry and to a lesser extent Jay Spearing and Josh Vela.

Parkinson has made his mark, especially on deadline day, but I think he is being let down somewhat by his forwards. We saw against Swindon Town yesterday that we are fine with having possession and we have players capable of creating chances - the only thing letting us down is our forwards.

That said, we are fourth in the league despite the struggles listed above. I think if one (or hopefully more) of the forwards can hit a hot streak then who knows where it'll take us. This is a tight league and we have remained in contention throughout our difficult period.

I still believe the future is bright and I hope the forwards can hit form because it would give us a huge base from which to build the rest of our season.