Bolton Wanderers and Man United 2023 agreement didn't go to plan: View | OneFootball

Bolton Wanderers supporters will always consider Manchester United a long-standing rivalry.

But with the clubs being in different leagues for a number of years now, that once-rivalry has lost some of its edge.

That was shown during the 2022/23 season, as the Trotters turned to the Red Devils in a bid to bolster their promotion hopes.

Ian Evatt’s Bolton looked to United as they were keen to sign attacker Shola Shoretire, a player who has come through the ranks at Old Trafford.

The 20-year-old had never spent time away from Man United since joining the club, but that changed when Bolton agreed to a loan deal until the end of the season.

Bolton Wanderers signed Shola Shoretire in January 2023

Bolton Wanderers headed into the January 2023 transfer window firmly in the race for a place in the League One play-offs.

But with several sides keen to make the top six, the Trotters still faced competition, so manager Ian Evatt was keen to make his side stronger for the second half of the season.

Bolton brought in several new faces in that window, with players like Victor Adeboyejo, Cameron Jerome, Randell Williams, and Shola Shoretire all arriving.

Shoretire was one of three loan signings made by the club that month, and there was optimism that the then-18-year-old could make a real difference to their team.

As mentioned, this was Shoretire’s first spell away from Old Trafford since joining, as well as his first loan move in his career and his first taste of EFL football.

So, there was a lot of adaptation needed, and while he did reasonably well, the agreement probably didn’t go as planned.

The Bolton and Manchester United Shola Shoretire agreement didn’t work out

Manchester United would have hoped sending Shola Shoretire to Bolton for the remaining six months of the 2022/23 season would have further enhanced the player's development and possibly given them a potential headache on his return.

However, it didn’t quite go like that because, even though Shoretire did feature heavily for the Trotters, it didn’t get to the point where they considered signing him on a permanent basis or where United had progressed him through their ranks.

Shoretire spent the first half of that season in Man United’s under-23 squad, where he scored five goals in nine Premier League 2 appearances. While the midfielder also played for the club in the EFL Trophy, he joined Bolton as a man in form with several games under his belt.

When he first joined the Trotters, Shoretire featured in the first 12 league games, with some appearances coming from the bench but most coming from the start.

However, he lost his starting spot after the 2-0 defeat to Ipswich Town, and from there on, he featured in just five of the last eight games of the season.

Overall, Shoretire played 16 times for Bolton, with all of them coming in League One, 12 of which came as starts for the club.

In that time, the 20-year-old averaged 54 minutes per game, during which he grabbed just one goal in a Bolton shirt. That would have been disappointing for the attacker, as he was averaging 0.9 shots per game, but only 0.3 were on target, as per Sofascore.com.

Shoretire operated in a number 10 role for Bolton, playing just behind the two strikers, a role he should be creating chances in, and he did, as he created three big chances but failed to register a single assist.

The Man United man did pick up 0.8 key passes from his 77% pass accuracy per game, and that helped him finish that season with a Sofascore statistical rating of 6.69.

The move to Bolton wasn’t a complete disaster for Shoretire, but it probably didn’t go the way Bolton or Man United expected.

As the hope would have been, he could have done enough to either earn a permanent switch to the club or at least another loan move the next season.

Instead, Shoretire has found himself stuck in the Man United academy in the 2023/24 season, with clubs not willing to take him on loan this time around. The loan to Bolton would have been a great learning curve for the player, but it probably didn’t go as planned for everyone involved.