PLANNING for the future has been a luxury Bolton Wanderers simply could not afford during the Phil Parkinson years.

Whether saddled by transfer embargoes or simply by the continual hand-to-mouth existence which became life in the Championship, there has been little scope to build in the way other similar-sized clubs have done.

Careful recruitment and investment has allowed Preston North End to rise from League One and operate competitively with minimal debt.

Sheffield United have taken it a step further and having gone up automatically with Bolton in 2017 now stand on the edge of the Premier League with many of the same players they had in the third tier.

Both clubs have bought and sold wisely and their successful recruitment can be mapped back at least two years, if not more.

As Wanderers contemplate a fresh start under new ownership there are plenty of areas in need of attention but if the club is to prosper in the longer term, the cycle of quick-fixes must be broken now.

Bringing through the likes of Luca Connell, Joe Pritchard, Harry Brockbank, Joe Muscatt and Roman Darcy into the first team environment is unquestionably a cost-effective step in the right direction, yet the transfer business done this summer will be arguably more important than fast-tracking the academy kids.

Assuming Bolton avoid the transfer restrictions which hampered their automatic promotion in Parkinson’s first season, investing money in players with re-sale value is the obvious way forward.

Although it can be argued that Wanderers tried to do that with Pawel Olkowski – an international defender at the prime of his career – the never-ending financial issues have weighted heavily on the Pole’s shoulders, his stock nowhere near as high as it once promised to be.

Christian Doidge was another ‘investment’ which crashed and burned in the most spectacular way when it transpired in January that Wanderers could not complete a loan-to-buy deal arranged with Forest Green. Legal action is now on its way from the League Two club’s owner, Dale Vince.

Much more frequently, Parkinson has looked – or perhaps been forced to look - to the free transfer market. And whether by necessity or design his signings have been players coming to the end of their careers.

The top nine ‘oldest’ teams named in the Championship this season have belonged to Bolton Wanderers, whose squad average 28.5 years.

The line-up picked against West Brom in January averaged 30.8 – higher than any Bolton team since online records began.

Next season there are currently just seven outfield players contracted to the club and no workable scouting network. The time for an overhaul is long overdue.

Even before the well-publicised problems with pay, Parkinson admits the club’s relationship with agents had suffered significant damage in the last couple of years, leading to a number of players refusing to do business with the club because of non-payment. That fact is made all the more difficult to fathom when you consider Ken Anderson was, at one time, a football intermediary.

Anderson voiced his intention not to pay over the odds for players on several occasions but last week, in what looked like a parting shot at the club, he criticised the money wasted on players not featuring in the side, adding that recruitment had “not been good enough.”

Anderson claims some of the peripheral players were on circa £10,000-a-week and though he signed off on the contracts, it is hard to argue that Bolton have not had their money’s worth in some of the business done last summer.

That comment came just days after the Bolton boss admitted his chief scout, Tim Breacker, was no longer able to travel to games because he had not been paid in three months.

Anderson’s son, Lee, did not hold an official position at the club but was regularly name-checked as one of the men responsible for transfer dealings.

Regardless of whether the owner can be accused of shifting the blame, there is evidence to suggest Wanderers have not got value for money from some of their summer signings.

Jonathan Grounds arrived on loan from Birmingham City on a good deal and failed to make a first team impact, likewise Luke Murphy who has another year to run on his contract.

Erhun Oztumer has struggled to find a niche in Parkinson’s side and Yanic Wildschut had spent most of the season on the bench before his ankle injury in the New Year.

Wanderers will be subject to different spending rules in League One, which operates under a Salary Cost Management Protocol. Clubs relegated from the Championship into League One face SCMP rules which restrict “players’ wages to 60 per cent of turnover plus 100 per cent of Football Fortune income (e.g. financial donations, transfer income, revenue from cup matches), with a club relegated from the Championship being able to operate at 75 per cent of turnover for a transitional period of one season.”

Even if it were possible ‘spending your way out of the division’ under new ownership would be no easy task.