By Gordon Sharrock: Swindon Town 3. Bolton Wanderers 3 IT may be youthful enthusiasm or merely blind faith that inspires Eidur Gudjohnsen's continuing confidence in Wanderers' promotion prospects. But the young Icelander - once rated among the finest prospects in Europe - might just have shown Colin Todd the way forward as the season hangs in the balance.

The striker, who made his name alongside the great Ronaldo at PSV, is still only considered the face of the future yet his impact, scoring the equaliser in Saturday's six-goal farce at Swindon, suggests he could be the man for the here and now.

And he could have encouraged his manager to hand the baton to a few more unfamiliar figures for the final lap in the race for the Premiership.

Eight catastrophic days have turned Wanderers' season upside down.

An unbeatable mean machine a fortnight ago, they are now the most suspect side in the promotion pack.

Having been a secure second and still talking of challenging Sunderland for the title, they are now precariously perched in fifth place and on a knife edge - seven points adrift of the automatic promotion place that remains their priority but only seven points above the last play-off place with the Championship now a distant dream. Todd believes it's all in the mind but he is seriously considering a shake-up.

"People will be asking how we got up there in the first place," he said, anticipating the analysis of his team's prospects after conceding nine goals in three expensive games.

"But they are the same players . . . good players with the ability to do well.

"So you wonder whether the pressure's getting to them. They're under no pressure from me and they have no reason to be nervous.

"If they are it's up to me to sort them out."

After the latest setback at the County Ground, the manager may be more inclined to use conventional methods rather than dabble with the psyche.

It's just a question of whether he is prepared to take drastic measures immediately, ahead of Barnsley's visit to the Reebok tomorrow, or give his players one more chance to get the promotion bandwagon back on track.

Few can feel safe from the axe after a game that offered little in the way of encouragement after the successive defeats by Crewe and Huddersfield. The character to take a point from a game they were losing 3-1 and a first goal for Gudjohnsen, heralding the re-emergence of a highly promising attacking talent who lost two years of his career with a broken ankle, is not a lot to take from a game they had to win to erase the growing doubts over their promotion credentials, especially since soft-centred Swindon have a reputation for squandering winning positions.

In fact the signs were discouraging: a wretched first half that had carelessness and frustration written all over it; a sloppy start to the second that allowed Jimmy Quinn's side to surge two goals ahead - twice, and even more calamitous defending that could have seen the home side snatch a winner twice in the last 10 minutes, when Wanderers had the game by the throat!

At least Gudjohnsen was upbeat. "Obviously we were pleased to come back after being 3-1 down," he agreed, "but we were a bit disappointed with our play.

"The first half was poor and we did really well coming back in the last 20 minutes

"But I certainly don't think it's all over for us yet.

"We will definitely make the play-offs but I am still very confident we will clinch second place."

The league table suggests otherwise. The fact is Wanderers, sitting nicely on Sunderland's shoulder before the wheels came off against Crewe, now have a lot of ground to make up if they are to reclaim second spot. Ipswich, Bradford and now Birmingham have overtaken them and there will be as many supporters looking down to the chasing pack as there will looking up to the pacemakers.

Todd knows he must either get the required response from his current squad - Paul Warhurst, Keith Branagan, Gudni Bergsson, Andy Todd and Bo Hansen will all join Gudjohnsen in that equation - or take a plunge into the transfer market before this month's deadline.

But the clock is ticking.

With 12 games to go, Wanderers must check the slide that has seen the most dramatic deterioration of their form and confidence.

Just four games ago they looked formidable; well-organised and brimming with self-belief.

Now they have lost the momentum and, with confidence draining with every leaked goal, Todd must now be tempted to turn the treatment table into a psychiatrist's couch.

Restrained in his assessment of the Crewe defeat, enthusiastic after the performance at Huddersfield, he was scathing of his players at Swindon, where the team lacked cohesion and individual errors littered the game.

"When we had the ball we couldn't pass, when we lost it we didn't have any discipline or shape," he summed up. Jussi Jaaskelainen's vital late save from Chris Hay might have rescued a point and left the young Scot glowing in his tribute ("I tried to take it round him but he had good angles and stood up well").

But it was the Finn's 17th minute mistake, missing a weak Bobby Howe header, that set the pattern.

More embarrassment followed on the half hour when the keeper and Mark Fish left Mark Walters' free kick to each other, trance-like as the ball hit the post!

Unable to find any rhythm and looking a shadow of the team that stormed the division with a 15-match unbeaten run, Wanderers let frustration get the better of them.

Per Frandsen and Michael Johansen were booked for dissent while Bob Taylor and Robbie Elliott received yellow cards for needless fouls.

Indeed, Todd was lucky his team was still intact at half-time with Taylor getting away with an off-the-ball tussle with Lee Collins and Frandsen pushing referee Barry Knight's patience to the limit.

For the third successive game, hopes of getting back on an even keel were scuppered within seconds of the re-start.

Frandsen, who had a rare off-day, lost possession in the centre circle and Ty Gooden's early ball put Hay away to outpace Mike Whitlow for Swindon's second.

It was the quality of Wanderers' individual talent as much as their collective spirit that got them back into it - Neil Cox keeping the pressure on following Scott Sellars' precision near-post corner and Fish claiming his first goal of the season with a spectacular bicycle kick. But they found themselves behind again when Frandsen resorted to shirt tugging to stop Howe and Walters - once a Liverpool regular but now a disillusioned fringe player - curled in a corker of a free kick.

"At 3-1, I thought that was it," Quinn confessed later, "but I'm not disappointed.

"We were the better team for long periods but the quality of the balls into our box was very hard for us to defend.

"Scott Sellars can put the ball on a sixpence.

"if he'd had to come off with an injury we would have won the game, I've no doubts about that.

"I don't give opposition teams credit when we make it easy for them but Bolton showed a lot of quality."

Only just enough. Claus Jensen belatedly got his passing game going and, although seeing chances he set up for Dean Holdsworth and Whitlow amount to nothing, he took matters into his own hands when he cut between two defenders to give Wanderers' hope.

An unlikely point was salvaged when Gudjohnsen was on the spot to convert Johansen's cross.

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