Bolton Wanderers run the risk of repeating 2023 summer transfer mistakes: View | OneFootball

With the summer transfer window beginning to enter a bit of a full swing throughout the EFL, there is a growing impatience from supporters of Bolton Wanderers at the inactivity and seeming radio silence with regards to any sort of business being conducted.

It is a well-known cliché, but a cliché for good reason, that getting business done early is often paramount to a team’s success and there will be a growing concern that Wanderers may not be able to do that – albeit it does remain very early on in the summer.

With two months until the opening game of the 2024/25 campaign, sporting director Chris Markham, manager Ian Evatt, and the rest of the club’s hierarchy will be keen to avoid the mistakes that were made this time last year.

Baccus, Flick, and Wilson

Last summer, Bolton were heavily interested in the signing of Keanu Baccus and it was reported that a deal of around £250,000 had been agreed with Saint Mirren for the Australia international but protracted negotiations, of which Baccus has discussed himself as feeling undervalued, eventually broke down after a while.

At the same time, Bolton had reportedly held an interest in Germany U21 international Florian Flick but an ankle injury delayed their move and he moved on loan to Nuremberg instead.

Another collapsed deal was Kane Wilson. The Bristol City defender was reportedly set to move to Lancashire for a fee of around £200,000 but Bolton delayed and hesitated, opting not to sign the full-back and he eventually moved to Derby County; who finished above Bolton in the top two on the final day of the League One campaign.

Whilst this went on, Wanderers lost valuable time in integrating players or even signing backup players for the positions they wanted to fill. The supposed Baccus alternative, Paris Maghoma, didn’t arrive until mid-to-late-July and neither did Carlos Mendes Gomes – and both of those, particularly the latter, are examples of timings Bolton will seek to avoid this summer.

The ‘CMG’ experiment

In the instance of Carlos Mendes Gomes, he joined from Luton Town for a fee believed to be in the region of £300,000 in mid-to-late-July, just before Wanderers’ penultimate pre-season friendly at home to Everton.

Such is the rigidity and specificity of Evatt’s system and style of football, the Guinea-Bissau international did not feature from the start at all in the league before picking up an injury in September and then going away on international duty at the Africa Cup of Nations in the New Year.

His position of being a forward, wide attacker, or number ten was also not available so Evatt trying to change the system just on the eve of the campaign was not possible and this was a result of the deal being done too soon before the end of the season and his general integration being flawed.

A similar situation occurred with the arrival of Maghoma, who joined on loan from Brentford and eventually went on to become Bolton’s Young Player of the Year. However, the former England youth international, who was a key cog in the XI by the end of the campaign, didn’t become a regular in the league for the Trotters until mid-October.

Maghoma benefitted from better injury luck than Mendes Gomes as the season went on and didn’t have international duty to contend with but bedding him in was also delayed because his signing had been delayed.

Evatt is keen on working with players for a full pre-season, which is why Bolton are often so busy during a January transfer window ready for the full summer, but with some major gaps to fill to mount another promotion challenge, avoiding a sloppy start and being able to integrate players into key positions will be key.

With that in mind, avoiding what happened last summer and what may, or may not, have proved pivotal to the end outcome of the campaign is absolutely crucial.