Playing Career

Freedman started his footballing career with high flying, QPR in 1992, however he didnt managed to make a first team appearance.  He moved to Barnet on a free transfer in July 1994, aged 20.  He made his league debut in August of the same year and quickly became the club's leading player, scoring 24 goals in his debut season. 

The following season he signed for Cystal Palace for a fee of £800,000 in September 1995.  He continued his goalscoring form managing to score a total of 20 times in the 1995-96 season. 

The following season (1996-97) he only managed to score 11 goals but helped the club reach the promotion play-offs.  He then scored very crucial goals, scoring in the 89th and 90th minutes of the semis after coming off the bench with 17 mins to spare.  Palace went on to gain promotion to the Premier League.

Freedman's experience of football at this level only lasted 7 games, after which he was loaned initially to Wolverhampton Wanderers in October 1997, this was made permanent after scoring 2 goals in 2 games for the fee of £800,000, which was part of a combined deal for Palace defender Jamie Smith.  Freedman's time at Wolves only lasted until the end of the 1997-98 season.  He was the team's leading goalscorer with 13 goals, but the mergence of Robbie Keane convinced Wolves to sell him to Nottingam Forest.

He signed for the newly promoted Premier League Forest for a fee of £950,000 and made his first appearance on 17 August 1998 as a sub in a 2-1 defeat to Arsenal.  In his first full season in the top flight he scored 9 goals for forest, who were then relegated to Div 1.  He made a total of 83 appearances and scored 23 goals before being sold to Crystal Palace in October 2000.

Freedman signed back with his former club for £600,000, during a relegation threatened campaign, but one which ened with his most famous goal for the club.  Relegation to the third tier loomed, until Freedman scored with 3 minutes to go, this kept Palace in the division, but relegated Huddersfield Town.

The following season he scored 21 goals in all competitions.  This earned him a call up with Scotland, howver the follwing season he was dropped from the Scottish National team and started to only have limited appearances at Palace.

In 2003-04, under new manager Iain Dowie, he re-established himself into the first team and help guide the club to promotion.  Back in the Premier League he was often overlooked as the team only used 1 striker.  He scored his only top flight goal in their vital final fixture at Charlton Athletic, drawing them level at 1-1, however the match finished 2-2 and Palace were relegated again.

Back in the Championship he remained down the pecking order but appeared again for the club in November 2005 scoring his 100th and 101st goals for Crystal Palace.  This made him the 7th player in Palace's history to have reached the century mark.  He ended the season with 7 goals.  The appointment of Peter Taylor as manager in Summer 2006 again limited Freedman's chances and he only managed to score 3 league goals.

Freedman joined Leeds United on loan and scored 5 goals which helped him to get rewarded with April's League One's player of the month and saw the side reach the Play off final, where he made an appearance on the day of his 34th birthday.  At the end of the season he was no longer required by Leeds so returned to Palace.  Freedman was granted a testimonial to reward him for his 10 years at the club. 

Freedman again left Palace to join Southend on a free transfer, scoring 4 goals in his first 4 outings.  Howver he was plagued by injury.  In March 2010 his contract was terminated and this ended his playing career.  He rejoined Palace as part of the coaching staff.

Managerial Career
Freedman's coaching career started when he was appointed the reserve team manager of Crystal Palace in November 2007.  He was in this role alongside his playing dutied for the club's first team.  This role had ened on his loan move to Leeds.  He also began coaching alongside playing for Southend United.

Freedman became the assistant manager of Crystal Palace, to Paul Hart, in March 2010, helping secure the survival of the Eagles.  Following the appointment of Georgr Burley, Freedman was retained as the Assistan Manager.  When Burley was sacked on New Year's day 2011 freedman was given the caretaker Manager role, check was only expected to be for a few weeks until a new manager was appointed, but he was made permanent manager, signing a 2 and a half year deal on 11 January 2011.  He quickly moved to bring in Lennie Lawrence as his Assistant Manager.

He was sucessful in guiding the club out of the relegation zone with the club achieving safety with a game to go.  Palace began the 2011-12 season well and were left in the play-off places at the end of October and had a good run in the Football League Cup, where they knocked out Man Utd 2-1 at Old trafford.  Palace ended up finishing 17th place.

On 23rd October 2012, Palace announced Freedman has left to join Bolton Wanderers.

The end of the Coyle Era has been the grist for the mill for the past two weeks, in the absence of club football. There has been a wide variety of opinions voiced, ranging from the deeply retrospective to the totally absurd. The reader will be left to decide the category that this article fits best into.

The Gleesome Threesome of Jimmy "Jimminho" Phillips, Sammy Lee and Julian Darby has been entrusted with the reins on an interim basis and there has already been numerous comparisons with the 'Coyle approach' and the 'new, scientific approach' now being employed.  Eyebrows were raised when club captain, Kevin Davies, enthused about the fact that the Wanderers’ new-look management team have wasted no time in adding a modern spin on training.

The introduction of double training sessions, tailored fitness and rehab schedules, and more detailed video analysis of opponents which the naive among us would have imagined to be standard issue for a professional football team, are among the things that were apparently alien to the Coyle administration. One wit was inspired to suggest that Coyle seemed to have been an "oranges at half-time" type of manager. Little wonder then, that his tactics and team selection remained a mystery to most supporters - casually referred to by the man himself as "people out of football who wouldn't understand".

So, since Eddie Davies didn't understand either, we are now trying to find that gem of a manager - that special one (no, not Mourinho!) who will bring the club back to the promised land, a.k.a. The Barclays Premier League as the good Mr. Coyle man used to delight in calling it. A number of  early candidates have fallen by the wayside or ruled themselves out, most  notably former Manchester United striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who is determined to see out the season with his current club Molde F.K.

While one would have thought he would relish a 'fresh club', he is not quite on that page - at  least not for another month. So while the  Gleesome Threesome ponder the  formation and lineup for Bristol City, one hopes that Big Phil Gartside has the fabled fax machine ticking over in search of the 'young, hungry and talented'  manager that will take the club forward, the needle in the haystack.

Written By Keegan

Owen Coyle has been relieved of his duties as Manager of Bolton Wanderers Football Club with immediate effect. Relieved may well be the most appropriate term to use in this particular instance, as despite his claims to the contrary he must be relieved at not having to figure out a way to stop the club from struggling in the quicksand that this situation had become for all concerned. In a move that was widely expected and eagerly anticipated by many Bolton Wanderers supporters worldwide, owner Eddie Davies instructed the Chairman Phil Gartside to pull the plug.

Gartside said in a statement on the club's official website: "Owen poured his heart and soul into the job, both on and off the pitch, and he led our club with great dignity during some very challenging times." Reports have surfaced that this move was exactly the opposite of what Phil Gartside had in mind however, as his intention was to support Coyle – the boss who controversially quit as boss of neighbours Burnley to save Bolton from the drop two seasons ago. Gartside was even considering a new contract offer that would tie Coyle to the club long-term, despite their early-season problems.But then Davies, on holiday in Hong Kong, told Gartside to pull the trigger, and the chairman and manager finalised the terms of his exit on Tuesday.

Recent actions and statements by Coyle smacked of desperation - such as his DVD compilation of decisions which he felt went against the Wanderers and cost them a higher place in the table and ultimately, his job. The most telling statement was perhaps the one attributed to him after the dismal showing in the 2-1 defeat against Millwall where he reportedly told the team "Maybe you need a new voice to listen to." While they now have that opportunity, they will be mindfull of the fact that their performances on the pitch have been consistently poor over an extended period and any new manager will certainly have his own ideas as to team composition and style.

Coyle's sacking following closely on the heels of Steve Kean's departure from Blackburn has given the tabloids a welcome diversion during this International break and lists of potential replacements are being prepared and devoured with gusto. Names being bandied about include Mick McCarthy, Alex McLeish, Alan Curbishly, Harry Redknapp, Paolo Di Canio and somewhat surprisingly, former Manchester United striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Wanderers legend 'Super' John McGinlay has moved to quell speculation that his return to England was timed so as to facilitate a spectacular return to the club as a direct replacement for his friend and former teammate via a twitter statement that it was a coincidence and that his sons had already returned and he was merely joining them in a pre-arranged move.

Academy manager Jimmy Phillips and head of academy coaching and development Sammy Lee will take joint temporary charge of the first-team squad but Chairman Gartside has stated his intention to recruit a manager who is "young and able to work on a tight budget" and will no doubt bear in mind how quickly he moved to replace Sammy Lee in his previous stint in charge by getting his new man quickly - although he has denied any approach at this point. It is hoped that a candidate can be found who will excite and inspire the team and fans alike - one would be hard pressed to find supporters who are in more need of good news after suffering not only the pain of relegation but the indignity of regular defeats in a league they were expected to dominate.

Written by Keegan

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at  our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
Like men we'll face  the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

The poem quoted above was written by a well-known Jamaican poet, Claude McKay, who must have been a fan of Bolton Wanderers. This writer has never experienced this level of ambivalence towards the performance of a football club that has become a part of the fabric of the lives of several thousands of people worldwide. The unthinkable has actually happened where supporters of the club have started to wish for a loss in the hope that it will spell the end of manager Owen Coyle's reign.

In the recent games against Crystal Palace and Leeds United, the performances were generally thought to have been of marginally better quality than a number of those that have gone before.  It is also generally agreed that they could not have been much worse either.  Improved performances in two games that yielded a grand total of one point, considering that they were played at home where we have been better this season and that we have targeted two points per game on average over the season, is clearly not good enough.

Our erstwhile manager, Owen Coyle, has clearly heard the calls for his head and has come out swinging. In a response to the criticism that has been levelled at him, he has been quoted as saying of his detractors, "If they are not from a footballing background, then that happens.  You take it on the chin as you always do." He went on to say this: “Regardless of what someone else's tactics are, if you are at yourself, it nullifies theirs.  People in football will understand that, people out of football won't.”  This has brought back shades of his predecessor and that infamous "people in football"  quote attributed to the Chairman, Phil Gartside.

Football officials in the Championship have also drawn his ire, with Coyle sending off a DVD compilation of "foul-ups, bleeps and blunders" that have been committed against  Bolton Wanderers to the higher-ups in the refereeing hierarchy, in an effort to  bring to the fore all the wrongs that have been committed against the club, which he said is "... costing us because we could easily be sitting here with 18 or 19 points and near the top of this league."

Many fans are crying out for simple, basic football - passing the ball along the ground, controlling the ball and looking for a pass, passing the ball and moving into position to receive a possible return pass - things that most of us are exposed to at the earliest amateur level. These have not been happening with any consistency for far too long. Clearly, there is no guarantee that we will be promoted this season, despite the backing of former manager Gary Megson who has tipped the club for an automatic promotion spot - and on current form, it is not going to happen. All we ask though, is that if we must die, let us nobly die - pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Written by Keegan