Why scoring the first goal matters so much to Bolton Wanderers

The ‘first goal’ is predictably given exalted status in such a low scoring sport, especially at the highest level.

Recent research involving staff from Oxford University and the Croatia and Spain national squads claim that a team scoring first in the World Cup knockout stages gives them an 82 per cent chance of winning the game. This figure drops to 77 per cent if the goal comes in the first 15 minutes but rises the later in the game it arrives.

Interestingly, the same study suggests that scoring early might actually be a disadvantage in a World Cup final.

Of the eight occasions in which the opening goal has been scored in the first 15 minutes, six of the teams that took the lead have gone on to lose the game.

Psychology works in strange ways – and whilst there have been times in Wanderers’ recent history that conceding the opening goal would effectively be a death sentence for their chances of victory, these days it is not necessarily the case.

When Adam Le Fondre and Fil Morais scored late in the game to help Phil Parkinson’s team beat Northampton Town 2-1 at the Macron on March 18, 2017, the 14,255 in attendance may not have appreciated what they were witnessing.

It would be another 120 league games before a Bolton side would concede the opening goal and still win.

Two full seasons of Championship football was played under that rule of thumb – with Bolton claiming just five points from the 57 occasions that they fell behind.

Keith Hill gets a rough ride from many Wanderers fans for his solitary season in charge but it was his team that broke the streak on December 21, 2019, as goals from Joe Dodoo, Luke Murphy and Daryl Murphy helped overturn a deficit against Southend United – then managed by Sol Campbell – to claim a rare win in that Covid-affected campaign.

For 180 hours, or 7.5 days of solid football, a Bolton team did not win a game in which they conceded the first goal – a startling statistic which placed huge pressure on the players at the time.

Fragile mentality became a discussion point among supporters and given what was happening off the field at the time, it was little wonder that reserves of confidence were thin.

It must be said that things have improved since those nervy days. Since Ian Evatt took charge in the summer of 2020. The Wanderers boss clearly won’t be pleased that his side has fallen behind 59 times – but might take some solace from the fact they still won 12 of those games. In total, they have clawed back 52 points from losing positions over the two-and-a-half seasons he has been in charge.

This season, Bolton have conceded the first goal on 10 occasions. They have recovered an impressive 14 points – which when broken down to points-per-game is bettered only by Plymouth Argyle, Ipswich Town and Derby County.

There have been stirring comebacks against Bristol Rovers, Fleetwood, Accrington and Burton, underlining both the character within the squad and the underlying fitness levels which keep them going to the end.

But can Wanderers rely on adrenaline to keep them in the top six? Evatt has tried to address the situation by tweaking numerous aspects of game preparation, from warm-ups to the players’ day off.

His squad even turned up to Friday night’s game dressed in full club suits – a practice we understand will continue for the rest of the season.

Responsibility has also been placed on the players for getting themselves into the right frame of mind before games. Vice-captain, Gethin Jones, revealed at the weekend that even the pre-game dressing room playlist has had a revamp in order to get the blood pumping faster and the mind sharper.

That all said, when Josh Coburn turned the ball into the net after just two minutes of the Bristol Rovers game, those well-intended plans quickly went into the shredder.

Wanderers got back into the game, eventually, their status as League One’s comeback kings still very much intact. The question is, do they really want to be saddled with that mantle?

Last season, Evatt’s side took the lead in 16 games and won every single one of them.

This year it has happened just six times so far and the team has won five. The only ‘blip’ was on the opening day of the season when Ipswich pegged them back to a draw after Aaron Morley’s opener from the penalty spot.

Of the 46 occasions that Bolton have scored first under Evatt, their win percentage is a whopping 89 per cent, so it is no surprise that both the manager and his players are looking for any conceivable way to improve how well they start games.

For some, the issue is in selection. On Monday, The Bolton News carried a feature discussing whether some players – most notably Kieran Sadlier and Amadou Bakayoko – are considered ‘finishers’ in the modern footballing parlance, rather than players who can impact the start of a match with the same effectiveness.

A similar discussion is being had with England’s World Cup squad under Gareth Southgate, where the likes of Marcus Rashford, Jack Grealish and Phil Foden have often found themselves saved for the latter stages against tiring opposition.

There is an argument to suggest pigeonholing talent in such a way is reductive. But just as the England boss has often been criticised for favouring the ‘system’ over some of his more maverick types, Evatt has had the same sort of comments aimed in his direction.

Since settling on the 3-4-1-2 formation at the start of this season, Sadlier and Dapo Afolayan have been the two players most displaced. Both have tried hard to carve out niches in different positions, with varying success, but for them to feature regularly from the start it would almost certainly require a change of system. And therein lies the rub.

With his side fifth in the table, on par for their season objective, it would represent a big call for Evatt to shift the balance of his team to accommodate a front three. Whether it is one worth taking is a subject which has been discussed long and hard among the supporters for the last few months.

The manager may have backed off a switch to 4-3-3 from the start having seen the way his team struggled to handle Barnsley in the FA Cup. Since then, Wanderers have made the switch in-game, but – much like Sadlier himself – it tends to be their ‘finisher’ in the latter stages when chasing a goal.

Looking towards the rest of December and early New Year, the Whites will be up against a handful of teams with promotion ambitions, and so with so much at stake it would appear unlikely such a wholesale change of formation would be considered unless injuries became a factor.

Eoin Toal’s solid performance at the heart of defence in Ricardo Santos’s absence against Bristol Rovers should give Evatt some confidence he can continue with the status quo – but that question of sustainability remains. Can Wanderers continue to produce the rescue act, or will they have to find a way of getting their business done earlier?