Where to now for Bolton Wanderers?

The Premier League season concluded with one of the more exciting final days in recent memory. While it was certain that either they or QPR would drop to the Championship, the manner of Bolton's ultimate demise was unexpected but eventually deserved. Since a promising start to 2010-11, the Trotters slid rapidly from an FA Cup semi-final appearance to a horrible 2011-12 season.

There was bad luck, such as key forward Chung-yong Lee breaking his leg or Stuart Holden missing most of the year; lack of form and age plagued Kevin Davies and Martin Petrov; decisively the Bolton defence was so leaky one imagines the architect planned it that way.

That Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch at Spurs was again an incident even the best planning couldn't anticipate.

Coyle, only a year ago rumoured as a potential Arsenal manager, has an almighty job to lead his club back to the Premier League. Considering Bolton's rather unsound fiscal state, it is a task he'll likely be expected to complete at the first attempt. Here are four steps which will allow Bolton to earn back their Premiership status:

Football's most operatic week

It may be cliché, but what a week we've seen in football. There have been more twists, subplots and stories than your average season of The Wire, passing everywhere from England, through France and Italy to the Iberian peninsula. To wit, we catalogue (briefly) the past ten days in football:

1. Chelsea defeated Barcelona (away from home, with the winning goal from a most unlikely source) in the Champions League semi-final, attaining some semblance of closure after four years railing against any and all authority figures. We bear audio witness to someone giving Gary Neville and unexpected and immensely painful wedgie.

 2. Speculation immediately mounts about the future of Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola, who announces three days later that he is taking a sabbatical.

3. Meanwhile, archetypal black-hat villain Jose Mourinho and his Real Madrid team are too knocked out of the Champions League at the semi-final stage, failing to overcome the Teutonic genetic predisposition of excelling in penalty shoot-outs.

4. Real then proceeded to claim the Spanish league title, their first in four years; Barcelona take scant solace in Lionel Messi breaking Gerd Muller's 39-year old European goalscoring record.

5. All the while, we witnessed attempts by simply everyone to leverage the tension inherently built up tension by Monday's City/United match, the most keenly anticipated derby since ... well ... the last one, billed hyperbolically as the “Match of the Century”.

6. On Saturday, Southampton achieved their second successive promotion and re-enter the Premiership after years in the wilderness (or at least, the third tier of English football). The rebirth of this iconic club came in the wake of administration, rumours of liquidation and away matches at Hereford.

7. Sunday left us appreciating Fabrice Muamba, who returned to a football match for the first time since his kayfabe and therefore extremely frightening cardiac arrest against Tottenham six weeks ago. Unfortunately, his Bolton Wanderers teammates couldn't rustle up a win for him – the Trotters were stuffed 4-1 by those same Spurs.

8. At the same time – still anticipating, with an ever-increasing sense of dread, the “Match of the Century” – Roy Hodgson ran-in to a one-sided contest to decide the manager of the English football team. The English FA decided that Harry Redknapp wasn't worth the cost, heartache and repeated demands to sign Lukas Podolski from ... err ... Germany. English tabloids reacted in their usual classy manner.

9. A minnow, third division club FC Quevilly, took on Lyon in the French Cup final. The result, unlike the contestants or scoreline, was predictable.

10. The same day (what a day!) saw a ghost whistle disrupt play in the decisive clash in Serie A between Champions League chasing Lazio and Udinese, allowing Udinese to score a crucial goal.

11. The much-vaunted Manchester Derby ended as many predicted – with a City victory – and once and for all reminding those in the halls of power (ie. Sky Sports, Fox Soccer Channel, ESPN etc) that the prophetic moniker “Game of the Century”, by the properties of mutual exclusion, guarantees a match which doesn't at all live up to the hype.

12. Two days after the derby-to-end-all-derbies (we can only hope), one of the odder occurrences in European football occurred when Fiorentina boss Delio Rossi attacked one of his own players, Adem Ljajic. He was, of course, promptly fired.

13. Finally, to conclude a tiring week, Newcastle United striker Papiss Demba Cisse scored two astounding goals as the Magpies maintained its challenge for Champions League football next season.

There's a defining but unspoken principal in almost all entertainment that we appreciate the consciously unresolved, but enjoy it more when resolution comes. Audiences like to be left hanging – at least for a while. This principal underlies stand-up comedy, TV story arcs and jazz improvisation among many others. The past ten days have provided almost all the twists football can offer; we've also seen some climactic moments.

It would tempt fate to suggest the season has no more surprises, but after a week like this it's hard to see from where they will come.

Be very proud, Spurs fans

Football fans get a bad rap. It’s often deserved.

I first understood the full scary nature of a football mob mentality when at my first La Liga match.  At the Barcelona derby in December 2003, I was amused to find Parakeet ultras lighting fires, fighting police in running battles and frisbee-ing seats dangerously close to players on the pitch – until they came into my section of Montjuïc Stadium.  As they closed on our section, amusement gave way quickly to apprehension.  It speaks volumes to Marc Overmars’ elusive ability not that he created several goals on the night, but that he also avoided the barrage of broken polymer.

There are also myriad more incidents of both pre-meditated and unconscious bigotry that make observers uncomfortable in their own skin – regardless of colour, gender or sexual preference.

But there are times which  make you rejoice at the spirit of your brothers – or even in that of your opponents.  I’m not talking about last minute goals, Champions League victories or even campaigns like Save Darlo, but of the horrible events of Saturday’s FA Cup match between Tottenham Hotspur and Bolton Wanderers.

Watching the match from the sofa was horrifying; to imagine being at the match itself doesn’t bear thinking about.  After seeing the young midfielder convulse once, Fox Soccer Channel wisely opted not to telecast further the resuscitation efforts, but the tears of those at the ground were evidence enough that Muamba was in grave trouble.

To then hear Spurs fans chant “Fabrice Muamba” again and again while the player was treated was one of the most touching things I’ve seen in football.  Many argue that football has lost part of its humanity as a result of its occupation by the twin armies of tribalism and capitalism.  No matter how unflinching the game has become, decency won out on this occasion in a resounding chorus.

We can only hope and pray Fabrice Muamba wins his battle also.

The chants, though strictly unnecessary, were an honest human response to a man in serious danger.  It was an entirely honourable action, performed by nearly all those at White Hart Lane who could still speak.  I don’t think I’ll remember another moment from this footballing year with more clarity, both for the sickening situation and for the cumulative response of Tottenham fans.

Since the advent of cutthroat professionalism and the arrival of the football-as-a-business era, the term “honourable” hasn’t been used that often.  It is these moments, though, and not just glamour goals, saves or results that we fans remember.  Players’ actions leave a mark on us, often moreso than the result of their endeavours.  To take a high-profile example, I can’t remember who won the race – at the peak of their rivalry – in which John Landy helped up Ron Clarke after he had fallen; the image is seminal to what it means to be Australian.  I’m sure everyone can recollect similar instances without pausing for thought.

On the whole, responses since Muamba's collapse have been overwhelmingly positive from players, administrators and fans alike.  But, for their initial, vocal, offer of support, Spurs’ fans chants stood out as entirely honourable, a gleaming – albeit small – positive from an awful event.