Bolton boss Owen Coyle is convinced an early return to the Premiership is a realistic scenario for the Trotters. Coyle said: "Of course it's horrible. It's such a wonderful club, and we will have that again. We're hurting dropping down to the Championship but we'll bounce back at the first attempt, I'm convinced of that because of the quality we've got."

On his own future, he said: "That's not up to me. If Tim Ream's header goes in - you don't become a bad manager because somebody makes a save.

"I know the young players I've brought in and how good they're going to be. Regarding the players out of contract, it's not an issue because I've already sorted things out with one or two and there'll be some that are moving on anyway.

"Maybe in the past this club has paid far too much money to players. The plan we put in place was going to serve the club for years to come. The disappointment is we're out of the Barclays Premier League, but we'll come back bigger and stronger."

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