Steven Schumacher has new Bolton Wanderers challenge if he is to see off Reading FC, Huddersfield Town | OneFootball

Steven Schumacher has found the ceiling of his Bolton Wanderers side but he must now discover the consistent floor that must see them over the line.

On Tuesday evening, Bolton Wanderers scored a dramatic, last-gasp, winner against local rivals Wigan Athletic to defeat the Latics by a goal to nil courtesy of centre-back Chris Forino.

It was not a goal or a game for the purists, but the victory ended what was a three-match losing streak, including defeats to fellow promotion contenders and other local rivals Blackpool and Stockport County.

More than just ending the rot, though, it was also the first time Bolton had beaten their South Lancashire opponents since an FA Cup third round tie all the way back in 2015.

In the meantime, Wanderers have seen Wigan come to Bolton and earn some 4–0 humiliations among other results, including a 2-0 victory for Shaun Maloney’s men back in mid-December.

Schumacher has produced some extremely impressive performances and now has some emotionally significant results, but a victory against his best mate Ryan Lowe on Tuesday is something that needs to be seen as a stepping stone to further things – the key being consistency.

Big performances and big results for Bolton

After replacing Ian Evatt in late-January, Schumacher enjoyed an impressive opening month and a half of the campaign, something that some may now suggest was an extended honeymoon period, before those aforementioned three successive losses.

Those wins included four come-from-behind wins, with one of those seeing them come from 3-1 down with half an hour to go to defeat Crawley Town by four goals to three with a 99th-minute winner.

That special moment in his first home game allowed Bolton supporters to buy into the former Plymouth Argyle and Stoke City boss – and then their hopes and expectations were heightened further early last month.

Wanderers went and earned themselves a rare clean sheet against automatic promotion chasing Wrexham before then producing a genuinely excellent performance to hammer champions-elect Birmingham City by three goals to one a few days later.

A return to predictably stale and stagnant performances that were a curse of the Evatt era came with those losses to Stockport and Blackpool in particular, but the Whites now know their ceiling.

Schumacher’s need for consistency

Bolton find themselves in the fortunate position to be sitting tucked inside the top six and the play-off places, competing for the final play-off spot alongside sides that have their own issues.

Reading's performances and results have been very good and admirable in the face of such disarray off the field, yet the Royals maintain hope. Huddersfield, on the other hand, sacked Michael Duff last month, but supporters remain unhappy with a clear lack of planning with no permanent manager brought in despite being in a promotion run-in.

That means that if Bolton can find a floor that is not as low as what they have shown often at times this season, then simple consistency, low-key performances and results could be enough to see off the challenges of two persistent yet crisis clubs.

The likes of Blackpool and Leyton Orient will also sense an opportunity, too, with the form of the former excellent and the O's also regaining some much-needed momentum - especially due to the circumstances at the aforementioned Reading and Huddersfield, as well as Bolton's lack of trust when it comes to putting a consistent run together.

Wanderers have found out just how good things can be and feel under the management of Schumacher, but now they need to find a way of perhaps softening those highs and making good standards the bare minimum requirement.

The emotional fluctuations could be something that carries a team through a play-off campaign which Bolton will still hope and expect to enjoy by the end of this season, but the more realistic manner of earning themselves what would be an unlikely promotion would be by finding a better ‘floor’.

Ensuring they are a lot more difficult to play against is key with that win at the Brick Community Stadium the other night, just the second clean sheet of the Schumacher reign thus far.

At the top end of the pitch, the likes of Aaron Collins and John McAtee have produced some excellent moments this season, with both players into double figures for goals this season, but scoring the scrappy, week in, week out goals that do not require moments of quality either late on or through sheer brilliance is something that Bolton will need: turning themselves into poachers as well as mavericks.

With seven games of the 2024/25 League One campaign to go, Wanderers have almost inexplicably given themselves a platform to gain promotion this season, but matching up the extreme highs with consistently strong and more controlled levels of performance must surely be needed if they want to make sure that last season’s failure haunts them again this time around.