"We should be ruthless" - Bolton Wanderers urged to U-turn on West Brom transfer interest | OneFootball

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Bolton Wanderers missed out on promotion to the Championship this past weekend after suffering a 2-0 defeat to Oxford United at Wembley.

Bolton finished in third position - 10 points ahead of the side that defeated them in the play-off final - so it was clearly a bit of a shock, and Ian Evatt's side will be devastated that they've missed out on a return to the Championship for the first time since 2019.

However, they'll have to dust themselves down and go again next season, and this summer is set to be crucial if Bolton have aims of winning promotion next season.

The club have recently been linked with a permanent move for Zac Ashworth, who has spent the season on loan from West Bromwich Albion.

The 21-year-old left-back has played just 20 minutes of football for the Trotters since February, so it seems a strange move on paper, but the club clearly have seen something they like to want him back on a full-time basis.

Bolton Wanderers told to be ruthless with their squad decisions this summer

After missing out on promotion just a matter of days ago, morale is clearly low amongst the Bolton Wanderers fanbase, and FLW's Trotters fan pundit, Oliver Jaques, believes that the club should be ruthless in a bid to improve the squad this summer - which includes not signing Ashworth.

Oliver told Football League World: “Personally I wouldn’t pursue Zac Ashworth. I think manager aside, you look at the playing squad, and we need to make lots of changes.

“The mentality is not quite all there, and we need to be ruthless with players who are decent enough and if they’re injury prone then we probably shouldn’t be going for them.

“Also, we should only be trying to improve this squad. It’s come very close to promotion, we should be ruthless with players who were sixes and sevens out of ten, and we need to ask if we really need them.

“If we’re serious about promotion, then we need to start turfing out some of the sixes and sevens out of 10, and replacing them with players who are eights and nines."

Signing Zac Ashworth on a permanent basis doesn't make sense for Bolton Wanderers

Given the fact he played just 16 of Bolton's 46 league games, it seems a strange move to try and sign Ashworth on a permanent basis this summer.

As mentioned above, since the 24th of February, the West Brom loanee has played just 20 minutes of football and was completely excluded from the club's matchday squads for their three play-off games, so it remains to be seen how much football he'd actually play if he did move to the Trotters on a permanent basis.

Admittedly, Ashworth did struggle with injuries at times, but this should perhaps be a sign that Bolton shouldn't sign him on a permanent basis.

The club brought in fellow left-back Nathanael Ogbeta on loan from Swansea in January, which indicated that Evatt wanted better in that position, and it subsequently pushed Ashworth down the pecking order.

As FLW's Bolton fan pundit Oliver said, if the club want to win promotion next season, they need to be ruthless with average players and players who are injury-prone. This means that players like Zac Ashworth should be avoided on a permanent basis this summer.