Moneyball wish may mean Bolton Wanderers are braced for January exits | OneFootball

The amount of purchases and lack of sales in the last few years at Bolton Wanderers could suggest a few departures in the near future.

Throughout Sharon Brittain and Football Ventures’ time in charge of Bolton Wanderers, they have spoken of wanting to create a sustainable football club in order to avoid what has happened in the past.

Wanderers, on numerous occasions within the last decade, have been moments away from liquidation but none closer than in the days leading up the FV takeover late in the summer of 2019.

Bolton have lifted themselves back into the third-tier and, through raising money via supporters, several other initiatives and other investment, they have been able to spend a fair bit of money on quite a few players in recent years.

However, despite the occasional sale for an undisclosed fee, such as Will Aimson to Exeter City or Jack Iredale to Hibernian; there has only been one ‘major’ sale of a first-team asset and that was Dapo Afolayan to St Pauli.

Gambling on promotion to the second-tier may have allowed Wanderers to be sustainable, but now they will have to adjust and if promotion is as unlikely as it currently seems come January, then sales may be in order.

Bolton are strict around player value

Ian Evatt has often discussed that Bolton Wanderers put a value on a player and ‘every player has their value’, so it wasn’t a major surprise to see Afolayan depart for Germany in January 2023, although the reported £500,000 fee did seem a little short.

There has been plenty of interest in the likes of Nathan Baxter, Ricardo Santos, Dion Charles and Victor Adeboyejo in recent years, but nothing has ever come to fruition with Wanderers being quite resilient in the face of that interest.

Given the fact that Bolton have spent quite a bit of money, most notably £750,000 on Aaron Collins in the January transfer window of 2024, it would seem a bit bizarre and counter to what was suggested that Wanderers have not let anyone go.

There were no incomings of over £1 million this window despite the fact that Evatt had suggested Bolton had a couple of seven-figure bids in for players, and they were linked with the likes of Joel Randall, Karamoko Dembele and Danny Armstrong throughout the summer.

That would tally up with Bolton refusing to pay what they believe to be over the odds, but surely sales must come soon if success isn’t arriving, and they are so strict on their values of players and their finances.

Question marks over the future at Bolton

Sharon Brittan and Football Ventures have done an excellent job in rescuing Bolton Wanderers, rebuilding the foundations of the club and getting them to realistically aspire and plan for becoming what they once were.

The plan has been on an upward trajectory since 2019 and this is perhaps the first time it has either stagnated or hit a bit of turbulence with fewer kind assessments suggesting it has stalled and gone backwards.

One glaring issue does remain and that is the funding of the club. Bolton have the scars of financial mismanagement of the past that left them on the verge of death just half a decade ago, so being extra careful and concerned is completely reasonable.

Therefore, when players are being purchased and no major outgoing sales are happening, there would seem to be a disconnect between the talk and the plan and then the actual reality of the situation.

Bolton may well be financially sound, but the business model would appear to rely on maximising player values to sell and that has not happened consistently yet. If promotion seems like a long shot by the January transfer window, then surely those sales may well be sanctioned.

That could mean players in the final year of their deals, such as Nathan Baxter (linked with Plymouth Argyle in the summer), Josh Dacres-Cogley (linked with Portsmouth in the summer), as well as senior men such as Ricardo Santos, Gethin Jones and Josh Sheehan could be pushed towards the exit.

That doesn’t even touch upon the prized assets in attack, such as the aforementioned Collins, as well as Dion Charles, who has often been linked with a move away, and Victor Adeboyejo, often linked with either a Championship or Turkish Super Lig move.

The next couple of months’ performances and results may not just be defining for the future of Ian Evatt and his reputation as an exciting young EFL coach and not just Bolton’s potential fortunes this season, but even deeper than that – it could tell the tale of what is to come for Bolton’s medium-to-long-term future.