Bolton have moved out two of their younger players out on loan as Ian Evatt tries to find them first team football.
Earlier today Dennis Politic’s move to League Two side Port Vale was confirmed. The plan is for him to stay there until the end of the season, but you’d imagine there’s a get out clause to bring him back if needed for whatever reason.
Politic gets to link up with David Flitcroft – the assistant manager when Keith Hill was in charge of us is now Vale’s director of football, which probably helped seal the deal. It had been suggested Politic would move to a club in the Scottish Premiership, but instead he has headed the other way down the M6.
It’s a difficult one really. There’ll be a lot of emotion in it compared to other players, due to his status as ‘one of our own.’ We also know he can do already do it in League One, he had proven so pre-pandemic. But he has had a very bad injury, and Evatt, who will have seen him every day, says he needs to get back up to speed physically. As good as Politic is, is he an undisputed first choice ahead of Dapo Afolayan on the left, or whoever eventually does get the nod on the right? Probably not. If he is to play every week, if he needs to play every week, he probably does have to go out on loan. It’s a shame in a way, I’d have liked to have seen him being involved with the first team this season, but the club hierarchy, any time more in the last few years, probably know what they’re doing.
Ronan Darcy, meanwhile, should complete a loan deal this week to go to Norwegian second tier side Sogndal. Presumably, he might have had a word with Reiss Greenidge, who had a loan spell at said club. Darcy’s a different situation in while Evatt has always spoken well of him, he has yet to start him regularly. Earlier in the summer, I thought he was a prime candidate to go out somewhere, although I wouldn’t have put money on it being the far north of Norway. Sogndal are currently in the play-off positions, so he’s hopefully going into a team in a good place and between now and November, when their season ends, he can contribute and grow.
He’ll also get to play with the sons of both Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and ex-Leeds midfielder Eirik Bakke.