Bolton Wanderers and Portsmouth have been handed a big boost by Bristol City: View | OneFootball

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The appointment of Liam Manning by Bristol City could hand Portsmouth and Bolton Wanderers a massive boost in their promotion hopes.

The Robins have appointed the former Oxford United manager as their next boss, after parting ways with Nigel Pearson.

The Championship side decided to relieve Pearson of his duties due to their recent poor form, and believing that he was not the man to lead them to: "the best possible chance of success," according to chairman Jon Lansdown.

Meanwhile, now managerless Oxford United currently sit second in the table after 15 games, with Liam Manning being influential in their rise to the top.

Now that the U's have lost their manager, it should give teams like Pompey and Wanderers a big boost of confidence, and it could open the Championship door for both sides even more.

Liam Manning's departure will boost Portsmouth and Bolton's promotion hopes

The 38-year-old was able to bring in players that suit his system well.

Summer signings like Ruben Rodrigues and Greg Leigh perfectly slotted into his possession-heavy, controlling style of play.

The Portuguese creative midfielder came from Luke Williams' Notts County who apply the slow, intricate way of playing football almost as well as anybody in the country, and Leigh came from a dominant Ipswich Town side.

His departure means that Oxford will need to go out and find somebody who can come in and keep things rolling.

The easiest way to do that is to bring in someone similar to Manning, and they aren't easy to find.

Unless Oxford have a replacement lined up almost immediately, there could be a few strong bumps in the road coming their way.

This could give the likes of Pompey and Wanderers the chance to build a gap between themselves and the other promotion hopefuls, if they can get some slight problems sorted.

What Bolton and Portsmouth need to do to get back to the Championship

Bolton are a team who dominate the ball; they're averaging 58.1% possession so far this season. Their issue is chance creation though. There's no point in having the ball for most of the game if you aren't going to do much with it.

Wanderers are eighth in League One for big chances created at 31 in 14 games. At the same time, they've missed 17 of them. They're leaving themselves little room for error, and this is partly because of Ian Evatt's insistence on how he wants his team to play.

It's a very rigid approach with not much room for flexibility or spur of the moment creativity. Evatt has his plan and the players must stick to it. This means in games where they initially struggle to find the back of the net, they continue to do so for the rest of the 90 minutes.

So Bolton need to either create and finish more chances, or the boss needs to be a bit more tactically flexible to give his team some room to breathe when things aren't going well.

With Portsmouth, there isn't much you can say about a team that has only lost once since the middle of March, and that was in the FA Cup to the National League leaders Chesterfield.

They have a very strong squad, an adaptable squad, and manager; what's not to like?

The only thing that currently looks like stopping them is the pressure of maintaining this run. It takes a toll on teams to lead the league from the start. Combine that with a very long undefeated streak and legs could start to feel heavy as the season goes on.

Ironically a loss like Chesterfield, or one in the league, might be a bit of a blessing.

They have everything you'd want, on the pitch, but that mental pressure can drown teams over such a long season.

Finding those extra motivating factors in the games where Fratton Park isn't bouncing as much will be the key to John Mousinho's side's success.