Transfer deadline days for Bolton Wanderers have been eventful in the last couple of days, even if the type of players we’ve often gone for have sometimes have made it felt like the people who rush to the petrol station to by last minute gifts ahead of Christmas.
This January deadline day has again felt like a disappointment, but this time it is because of what we didn’t manage to sign. Although Ched Evans, who himself isn’t a signing to particularly warm to for non-footballing reasons anyway, was in the hotel and ready to do the deal, for some reason it fell apart, demonstrating the obvious pitfalls of having to do last minute business. Bolton, the lowest scorers in the division, now face the rest of the season with Josh Magennis and Clayton Donaldson as their only senior strikers. Great. The lack of a permanent signing either, makes you wonder if the money for Christian Doidge was ever really there.
There was a signing however, with the loan capture of the versatile Callum Connolly. An Everton player who can play either full-back slot or in midfield, the news gave Wigan fans a bit of a laugh. Connolly has struggled at right-back, although Reece James has been excellent for that lot so it may have been a tough ask to reach that level. He seems highly rated by Ipswich fans however, where he played in midfield. It’s one more body certainly, which can’t be sniffed at when we’ve had injuries, but whether he has that ability to bring up the team’s quality a notch is a different matter.
Surprisingly, nobody left, despite a couple of Premier League bids for young Luca Connell, while there could still be free agent signings, that deadline being late March. Efe Ambrose seems to be the name there, a defender who has spent the last few years at Celtic and Hibs. He was quite quick a few years ago and usually reads the game there, though he can have a mistake in him. Can he play up front though?