Bold Bristol City call has paid off for Bolton Wanderers player | OneFootball

Highlights

In the summer, Bristol City reportedly agreed a fee of around £1 million with Bolton Wanderers over the signing of the Trotters’ central midfielder, George Thomason.

However, the then 22-year-old Barrow-born man opted to reject City’s terms in order to continue his development as a player at the Toughsheet Community Stadium as Wanderers embarked upon a campaign in which they would be aiming for a top-two finish and automatic promotion to the Championship.

Many Bolton supporters were sceptical about the potential and ceiling of Thomason with quite a few posts on social media suggesting it was a brilliant deal for the club.

At the time, the midfielder had been somewhat a player on the periphery of the first XI up in Lancashire but what the recruitment department at Bristol City had seen themselves was about to be built upon with the rangey left-footer flourishing and establishing himself as a key man for the Whites this season.

Growing into the season

“He is a very young footballer and he still has a lot to learn, but one of George’s main assets is his attitude and mindset. He wants to learn, he’s always asking questions.”

Those were the words of Bolton manager Ian Evatt back in December 2022, reacting to the news that Thomason had just signed a deal that will see him contracted to the club until the summer of 2025 with the option of a further year.

Thomason signed for the club under Keith Hill back in January 2020 from Longridge Town. He had spells at Bamber Bridge on loan later that year before being recalled by Evatt in November 2020 and gradually moved into the first-team picture with Wanderers.

By the end of the 2020/21 campaign, in which Bolton propelled themselves from 18th in February to the automatic promotion spots in League Two by the start of May, Thomason had made 13 starts and six appearances off the bench in the fourth tier for Bolton, including being in the starting eleven for six of their final seven matches that season.

In the 2021/22 campaign, he only managed nine starts for Wanderers as they finished ninth in League One and then only 13 starts in the 2022/23 campaign as they finished in the playoff places, albeit he did start at Oakwell in their League One playoff semi-final second-leg loss to Barnsley.

This season, after starting on the bench in their opening four matches of the campaign, thus making the links to a higher division quite strange at the time, Thomason has established himself as a key cog and one of the first names on the teamsheet for Bolton, starting all but one of the games that he has been available for since those opening four matches.

Energy, vision and a newfound attacking effectiveness

‘Been available for’ is a key phrase in that sentence, though, as the excellent and promising youngster does have one obvious flaw and that is his disciplinary record.

In 28 appearances in League One so far this season, he has picked up 13 yellow cards as well as one straight red against Northampton Town last month. He was also booked in both of Bolton’s EFL Cup matches back in August, as well as receiving three cautions as Bolton reached the EFL Trophy quarter-finals. He has already been suspended twice in the league and would have been suspended for an EFL Cup third round tie and the EFL Trophy semi-final had Bolton made it through to that stage.

His messy and definitely worrying disciplinary record comes as a factor of the way he plays with him being key to Bolton’s aggressive press out of possession with a dog-like desire to chase and harry an opponent.

To suggest he is all blood and thunder, though, would be to really underplay exactly what it is that has made him so important to Bolton this season.

Bolton midfield.

With a delightful left foot, capable of building a tempo, switching the play and playing probing balls in behind; Thomason has also added an attacking capability to his game this season with five goals and three assists from a fairly deep midfield position, including some real screamers throughout the campaign, most notably the winning goal in Bolton’s 1-0 defeat of Blackpool back in November.

An unknown ceiling and constantly improving

What has been apparent in Bristol City’s recruitment in recent years is an eye for midfield talent and it's increasingly become the case that if the Robins are interested in a player, then there is definitely something to keep an eye on.

A move to a Championship club would have been tempting and it was bold call from Thomason to stay put, particularly given he wasn't yet established in the starting, but he is seeing the dividends now as it has allowed him to hone his craft in the middle of the park for a strong and ambitious League One side.

Early in his career, there was perhaps a lack of consistency in his performances - that is natural but the major technical and tactical weakness would have been that he was a touch too gung-ho and lacking the smarts of when to press and when to be aggressive.

His inquisitive nature, which Evatt pointed out in the earlier quote, combined with a clear development of his confidence, which can often come out and be shown by being a bit of a wind-up merchant on the pitch towards opposition supporters or players, has allowed for him to become an all-action and consistent cog in the Wanderers XI. That consistency and confidence, which has allowed him to unlock this current version of himself, may not have been fulfilled or discovered had he made that move last year.

It would have been an easy decision to leap into the second tier at the age of 22, but Thomason made the gutsier call to grow as a player at Bolton and both are repaying the faith they have shown in each other this season.

How high his ceiling is remains to be seen and it's not outrageous to suggest that he could well go on to become a Premier League player with his current rate of improvement.

Bolton will simply be hoping he can iron out the yellow cards issue and stay with the club as they continue their rise back through the EFL. Club captain Ricardo Santos and vice-captain Gethin Jones are the only other players that were with the club when they gained promotion from League Two but Thomason is their longest-serving player.

That fact, alongside his heart-on-sleeve approach to the game, makes him future captain's material and he has already worn the armband in the EFL Trophy this season.