How Bolton Wanderers can add up to promotion this season

Perhaps more than any other manager in Wanderers’ history, he gives credence to data and analysis in picking and recruiting his players, assessing his opponents, and breaking down the success or failure of performances in League One.

His responsibility this summer will be to evolve Bolton from beaten play-off semi-finalists into a side capable of challenging for automatic promotion. And, for once, this is not a theoretical target based on consensus among an expectant fanbase, both the manager and those above him in the boardroom have targeted Championship football in the next 12 months.

We have looked into some of the key stats from last season to see where the major changes must be made to make the next step.

SPREAD THE WEALTH

Without question the top priority for Wanderers this season is to bring in players who can add more goals without compromising too severely the defensive structure which served them so well this season.

Evatt’s side was the 10th highest scorer in League One, their 63 goals (including play-offs) coming at 1.31 per match – a lower rate than teams like Exeter City, Portsmouth or Charlton Athletic.

Dion Charles did score 16 times in the league, 21 in all competitions, ending a long wait for someone to break the 20-mark but the spread of goals throughout the squad was not sufficient, particularly in midfield.

The last time a Bolton team was promoted in this division, 2016/17, they managed 68 goals (1.48 per game) but no player got into double figures in the league. Josh Vela, Gary Madine, David Wheater and Zach Clough all chipped in with nine apiece.

This season, Kyle Dempsey (pictured) and Conor Bradley scored five apiece in the league, but getting more goals from elsewhere is surely an issue for Evatt to address.

UPPING THE ANTE

Wanderers took 663 shots at goal in the regular season, scoring 62 times, a conversion rate of 9.4 per cent. That ranks the team sixth in the division, roughly on par with where they finished in the table.

Getting that rate above 10 per cent, matching the likes of Ipswich and Plymouth, or potentially upping the number of shots – for example, third-placed Sheffield Wednesday had 885 attempts this season, more than 33 per cent higher than Bolton.

Individually, Wanderers’ most prolific ‘shooter’ is, unsurprisingly, Charles at 2.5 per game. He is ranked 34th among all League One players but has a very handy conversion rate of 16.8 per cent.

Beyond him, Dan Nlundulu (pictured) comes in at 71st – his work split between Bolton and Cheltenham – two per game and a conversion rate of 6.9 per cent.

Victor Adeboyejo – who like Nulundu splits his record with a few months at Burton – also comes in at 96th with 1.7 shots per game, and an impressive conversion rate of 18.9 per cent. His individual XG is also just over nine, which puts his return of 14 goals for the two clubs as a very healthy one indeed.

A MATTER OF URGENCY?

A criticism regularly labelled at Evatt’s side – rightly or wrongly – is that build-up play can become laboured against more stubborn defensive opponents. It became a regular sight last season to see teams defend deep and try to hit the Whites on the counter, particularly in home games.

Bolton ranked sixth in League One for average sequence time – i.e. how many seconds they kept possession. Charlton, MK Dons, Ipswich, Peterborough and Bristol Rovers had a higher average sequence than Wanderers (7.59 secs) and also had slightly more passes per sequence than their 2.29 per attack.

Perhaps the more telling metric is direct speed, which measures how quickly a team progresses the ball up-field, measured in metres per second.

Exeter move the ball slowest in League One at 1.15mps, with Accrington the quickest at 1.82mps. Bolton, somewhat surprisingly, are right in the middle of the pack in 14th – 1.44mps – level with Plymouth Argyle.

Wanderers have often sought to combat a deep-lying opponent by keeping possession, drawing them out, and looking to hit a more direct ball towards the pacy Charles (pictured). Refining this approach, or finding something more fruitful, could be the key to more goals next season.

CREATIVE SPARK

According to FutMob, Aaron Morley created 2.1 chances per 90 minutes, which ranked him seventh in League One behind the likes of Ipswich Town’s Leif Davis (3.4), Sheffield Wednesday’s Barry Bannan (3.3) and Accrington’s Sean McConville (2.5). It also improved on his rate of 1.7 per game in the second half of last season after his move from Rochdale.

Conor Bradley is the only other Bolton player in the top 50, the wing-back creating 46 chances overall at a rate of 1.1 per game.

You have to go down to Kyle Dempsey in 94th and Kieran Lee at 100th for any other representation inside the top 100 creative players in the division.

In 2021/22, Wanderers had both Dapo Afolayan (68 at 1.8 per game) and Declan John (59 and 1.6 per game) inside the top 20 creative players – and both struggled to find regular football after last summer’s tactical tweak, with Afolayan eventually moving on to German club St Pauli.

Since then, the onus for creativity has rested heavily on Morley’s shoulders in midfield, alongside the endless running of Bradley down the right. As with goalscoring, Wanderers may well feel they need more contributors next season if they are going to make the difference, especially in tight games.

EASY WINS

Delving a little deeper into the world of XG – i.e. assessing the quality of the chances Wanderers are creating and where the shots are coming from – Opta Stats claim they should have scored 42.34 goals from open play, slightly more than their actual total of 40.

From set pieces, Bolton’s return was better than the season before. Topped up by several Dion Charles penalties, their return of 14 goals from set plays was above their XG – i.e. how many they were expected to score – of 12.87.

Set pieces still represented a fairly low ratio of their overall goal return, however, with the Whites ranked 16th out of 24.

As we saw against Barnsley in the play-offs, a successful set-piece can often be the defining factor in a tight game. On the whole, Bolton’s defending has been solid and their threat from set pieces has improved, but there is scope for more.

IF IT AIN’T BROKE

Last summer, Evatt looked at Wanderers’ pressing strategy and made some big decisions on where his team needed to improve. The trade-off resulted in less game time for players like Afolayan and Kieran Sadlier, whose work out-of-possession did not, it would appear, meet the required standard. Both struggled to find a new niche in what was usually a very structured 3-4-1-2 formation.

Wanderers scored 74 times in the 2021/22 season, finishing ninth. This season they scored 63 times and finished fifth.

Success was built on 22 clean sheets in the league and an impressive 36 goals conceded, which was 21 fewer than the season before.

Though James Trafford was rightly praised for an excellent season, it would be wrong to suggest he or his defence was regularly overstretched. Evatt’s pressing strategy, quite literally, meant defending from the front.

Wanderers had the lowest PPDA (passes per defensive action) in League One, which is a good measure of how successful a team is in retrieving the ball.

And it was by some distance, too. According to Opta, the Whites averaged 9.4 PPDA compared to Ipswich Town, in second, with 10.8 and Oxford United, in third, with 11.1.

The most ‘passive’ teams in League One were Forest Green (16.1 PPDA) and Cambridge United (17.6).