Bolton Wanderers’ pre-deadline transfer priority clear after Ian Evatt comments: View | OneFootball

Bolton Wanderers have tweaked their system under the management of Ian Evatt and have recruited accordingly but they mustn't stop there.

Ahead of Bolton Wanderers’ underwhelming goalless draw with Wrexham in their first League One game of the season at the Toughsheet Community Stadium this weekend, Ian Evatt dropped a hint about the final days of the window.

The Wanderers boss told Bolton News he expects two or three departures before the end of the summer transfer window.

The next ten days could continue to see Bolton be quite active in the market and they have already experienced a busy summer with eight incoming signings to a team that narrowly missed on promotion twice last season, firstly on the automatic places on the final day of the season and then losing the League One play-off final.

Trotters supporters are expecting outgoings but that does not mean there should or could not be more incoming signings before the end of the window, which closes at the end of August.

What was clear on Sunday and has become clearer with a couple of key injury issues is that, despite recruiting well in that position and those areas, another attacker may well be required for Wanderers this summer.

Injury issues for Bolton

Last season, Bolton arguably lost the battle for automatic promotion as a result of injuries with the biggest of those issues being Nathan Baxter missing 13 games from February to early April.

As well as Baxter, plenty of other senior players, such as key figures like Ricardo Santos and Dion Charles, also suffered issues but Wanderers are now once again being frustrated by absentees.

Carlos Mendes Gomes arrived last summer and got injured early on in the season. After returning, he headed to the CAF Africa Cup of Nations with Guinea-Bissau and then showed Bolton fans just what he could offer in a short spell before suffering an injury in late February against Wigan Athletic that is now expected to see him unavailable for the vast majority of the first half of this season.

New signing Klaidi Lolos from Crawley Town, one of the players recruited to play in the two in Ian Evatt’s new 3-4-2-1 system, enjoyed a promising pre-season but the former Greece youth international suffered a nasty injury on the opening day of the campaign against Leyton Orient that will see him sidelined for "at least" six weeks.

Those injuries meant that Sunday’s draw with Wrexham saw both Scott Arfield and Kyle Dempsey come on as impact subs for Aaron Collins and John McAtee in the advanced positions behind the striker and neither would necessarily inspire confidence of being the much-needed creative spark with both probably more starters than ‘impact’ players.

Ian Evatt’s tactical tweaking

There is also a lack of balance in terms of a lack of a left-footed attacking player. Wanderers did spent a large part of the early summer being linked with Danny Armstrong of Kilmarnock without success but they did bring in Szablocs Schon from Fehervar to play as a left wing-back.

There is, though, a lack of options to play in the two behind the forward and a lack of variation with both Collins and McAtee appearing very similar stylistically and one of them being forced to play on the right-hand side which doesn’t entirely suit them.

There has been an indication that Bolton are trying to identify a target for that role with a bid recently reportedly rejected for Dundee captain Luke McCowan, who would fill that void.

Evatt has said that Wanderers are very "fluid" as they head into the final stages of this summer’s transfer window and would do business in terms of incomings if one of their long-term targets becomes available or a deal becomes possible.

However, there may actually be a need to try and force a move in the remainder of this window to protect against the Trotters falling into the similar failings and trip of being overly predictable and a left-footed attacker must surely be high on their list.