Nolan puts his loyalties aside as Cobblers aim to get back on track against Bolton
Kevin Nolan’s love and respect for Bolton Wanderers will ‘go out of the window’ between 3 and 5pm on Saturday when Cobblers look to ‘right the wrongs’ of their poor performance last weekend.
Saturday’s visit of the in-form Trotters is a fixture filled with nostalgia for Nolan, who joined Bolton as a 15-year-old in 1997 and spent 12 years at the club, playing 345 games in total and scoring 50 goals. He also captained the side in the Premier League before spells with West Ham and Newcastle United.
But after last Saturday’s disappointing display at Wycombe, Nolan has no time for sentiment, and he’s expecting a much improved performance at Sixfields this weekend.
"Bolton have had a good start and they have some very good players,” said Nolan. “Steven’s built a strong squad so it’ll be a tough game but it’s one I’m looking forward to. They’re obviously my old club and I have a lot of loyalty and love towards them, they gave me the chance to become the player I did, but there won't be any of that on Saturday.
“All of that goes out of the window because I want to beat them and I hope it’s a good day for us and we can properly banish last weekend’s performance. I want to right the wrongs of what we saw at Wycombe on Saturday because I was disappointed with the performance and the outcome.
"I've said to the lads, we have to put that away now and look forward and I expect us to get back to the performances that we were putting in a couple of weeks ago.”
Although Bolton are 10th in League One, they have not lost in any competition since the opening day of the season and all of the underlying data suggests they are one of the best teams in the division.
"I’ve said before that I want to build a squad that can match anybody on our day and I think we can do that,” Nolan added. “We’ve already played all of the top three this season, which shows it’s been a tough start, but to be sitting where we are is a decent start.
"But I want to be better and it doesn’t matter if it’s Bolton or someone else coming to Sixfields, we need to match them and when they leave the stadium at 5.30pm on Saturday, they need to know they have been in a game.”