MARK Fish is a doubtful starter as Wanderers bid to check their Division One slide at home to Port Vale tomorrow night.

The South African centre-back, substituted in Sunday's 3-0 Reebok defeat by Sunderland, is struggling with a leg injury.

If he fails to respond to treatment, he will force another defensive re-think.

Nevertheless, Colin Todd remains confident he has the talent at his disposal to stop the rot that has seen Wanderers take just two points from a possible 15 and end a run of three successive league defeats.

"We are good enough!" the Bolton boss insisted today. "There is no reason for any alarm bells to be ringing but we have hit an indifferent spell and this is the time when we need to show strength of character.

"This is when you find the people who are prepared to take responsibility . . . and I have no doubt the players will take that responsibility."

It appears Wanderers will be going with what they've got, personnel-wise - for the time being at least. Despite having repeated his intention of adding to his squad and having spoken to chairman Gordon Hargreaves over the release of money following the £4.25 million sale of Nathan Blake to Blackburn, Todd appeared to be focussed only on Port Vale when he said there was nothing doing on the transfer front.

"We are concentrating on tomorrow's game," he said. "We are going through an indifferent period and I'm asking players to show their true colours.

"Sunday's scoreline flattered Sunderland and overshadowed some positive signs that came out of our performance. Some of our play was very, very good. We took the game to them and we created chances . . . they just wouldn't go in for us and we were punished for some little errors at the back.

"The scoreline is the most important thing, of course it is, but we haven't lost the ability that was serving us so well before. I'm just looking for a higher workrate when we lose the ball."

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