Summer 2020 transfers

[TonyDomingos]

The defensive signings rumour mill is eerily quiet.

Don't need them mate. No-one will get in our half.

We'll win every game 5-4!

[DJBlu]

Antoni Sarcevic is a Wanderer.

[TonyDomingos]

Two year deal.

[Bertie Wooster]

Great signing, this guy will make us tick - just listen to his passion in the various interviews (one is a podcast where his passion & desire to play for us is fantastic). I honestly can't remember a player in recent times to talk about the move & the club like he has.

He has something about him - I'll be surprised if he's not the new captain, a proper energetic goal scoring midfielder & he comes across as a bit of a rum lad, hopefully he puts himself about on the pitch which is something that we have missed for a while.

[sonicthewhite]

Another great signing for the club. Another player who knows this league inside out and what to expect. Just need an experienced central defender and a goalkeeper and that's the spine of the team sorted

[The_Gun]

I know very little about Sarcevic other than what people have posted on here, but signing the player of the season from a club that just got promoted out of the division certainly looks a very positive move.

I would have thought we might have heard more about the players we've approached to re-sign by now. Does the radio silence perhaps indicate that Crawford is going to be the only one back?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I would have thought we might have heard more about the players we've approached to re-sign by now. Does the radio silence perhaps indicate that Crawford is going to be the only one back?

Or maybe that the others may have to fight for a renewal. Evatt confirmed that pre-season starts Monday and that that will move things along as players/agents start to worry. Wouldn’t stun me if one or two of last season’s players train with us to make up the numbers, keep fit and try to catch Evatt’s eye, a la Wheater/Parkinson.

[BWFC_Insane]

I would have thought we might have heard more about the players we've approached to re-sign by now. Does the radio silence perhaps indicate that Crawford is going to be the only one back?

Or maybe that the others may have to fight for a renewal. Evatt confirmed that pre-season starts Monday and that that will move things along as players/agents start to worry. Wouldn’t stun me if one or two of last season’s players train with us to make up the numbers, keep fit and try to catch Evatt’s eye, a la Wheater/Parkinson.

Goes other way too - I suspect we've offered one or two deals and they are waiting to see what other options they have.

[DJBlu]

Any remanent from the PP striking era can gladly depart.

A proper fresh start.

[The_Gun]

According to the Lion of Vienna Suite site the rumour is we've offered Emmanuel a deal. As mentioned before, I'd be very pleased if he re-signed as he seems an ideal fit for the RWB position and at 22 should have plenty of development left in him.

Dodoo and Luke Murphy linked with Crewe, Lowe with Blackpool and Matthews with Carlisle. Matthews is the only one in there I might be interested in keeping, however, the more I think about it, the more I think Evatt is quite likely to want to go in a different direction with his search for a number 1 keeper.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I would have thought we might have heard more about the players we've approached to re-sign by now. Does the radio silence perhaps indicate that Crawford is going to be the only one back?

Or maybe that the others may have to fight for a renewal. Evatt confirmed that pre-season starts Monday and that that will move things along as players/agents start to worry. Wouldn’t stun me if one or two of last season’s players train with us to make up the numbers, keep fit and try to catch Evatt’s eye, a la Wheater/Parkinson.

Goes other way too - I suspect we've offered one or two deals and they are waiting to see what other options they have.

Oh indeed - we are a big draw in this division but we seem to be targeting players who could “do a job” in the Third, so we will naturally have rivals. Emmanuel sounds promising, especially at wingback rather than full-back.

Decent interview with Evatt tweeted by official site. Although none of it is rocket science, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a Bolton manager say “algorithm”.

[The_Gun]

https://twitter.com/efl_hub/status/1283675829780840450

Jordan Turnbull strongly linked by (dubious) Twitter account 'EFL Hub'. If there's any truth in that it would be another tremendous signing.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Iles: https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/18 ... ilability/

WANDERERS have checked on the availability of Blackpool defender Ryan Edwards. The 6ft 5ins centre back found himself out of favour in the second half of last season at Bloomfield Road and could be allowed to move on.
... Salford City are also believed to be keen on the Liverpool-born 26-year-old. Blackpool recently added Leyton Orient’s Marvin Ekpiteta to their squad but may need more cover before they allow Edwards a route out of the club

Edwards played 49 times with Antoni Sarcevic at Plymouth (over two League One seasons); plus in early 2013/2014 he was loaned to Chesterfield, where he played six times with Eoin Doyle. Evatt returned to the Spireites as club captain that summer but missed the first two months; he and Edwards did play together twice, the first being a derby win at Mansfield in the Sherpa Van.

Overall, he's made two-thirds of his 242 league appearances in Division Four, the rest in Division Three. Besides Chesterfield, he's played in D4 for Rochdale, Fleetwood and Morecambe, originally on loans from his scholarship club Blackburn, where he captained the 2011–12 FA Youth Cup finalists.

He's halfway through the two-year contract he signed when leaving Plymouth after their 2019 relegation. The Seasiders would have to release him or agree to loan him and (if I'm not mistaken about the terms of his embargo) pay his wages.
.

Jordan Turnbull strongly linked by (dubious) Twitter account 'EFL Hub'. If there's any truth in that it would be another tremendous signing.

Nixon has mentioned Turnbull among half a dozen centre-backs we're considering.

Turnbull certainly seems highly-rated and is another (like Sarce and Doyle) with a promotion on his CV; he left Northampton this summer after failing to agree terms. A year younger and four inches shorter than Edwards, left-footed Turnbull is a Wiltshire lad who played two full third-tier seasons with schoolboy club Swindon, then another with Coventry; when they went down, he had a relegation clause and hopped to Partick for half a season before returning down south to Northampton, then third-tier, on a two-and-a-half-year deal. This time he didn't leave when they were relegated and by many accounts the Southampton Academy graduate seems to have been a step above the bottom tier; whether he'd willingly drop back into it – and move north - remains to be seen.

[BWFC_Insane]

We'll need 3 centre backs I'm guessing. We've got Delaney and Senior and Edwards - but if you're going 3 at the back you'd want at least 5 if not 6.

We also need to get some wing backs, desperately - assuming we're playing that system and for me in said system wingbacks are so so critical you have to get the very best you can. And have cover because its a physically demanding role. So that's probably 7 players needed there. Then a keeper - another midfield player or two and a striker or two. Lots to do.

[The_Gun]

We'll need 3 centre backs I'm guessing. We've got Delaney and Senior and Edwards - but if you're going 3 at the back you'd want at least 5 if not 6.

We also need to get some wing backs, desperately - assuming we're playing that system and for me in said system wingbacks are so so critical you have to get the very best you can. And have cover because its a physically demanding role. So that's probably 7 players needed there. Then a keeper - another midfield player or two and a striker or two. Lots to do.

We're only permitted 23 players in the squad though, right? If we bought in another 11 players as you suggest, wouldn't that take us above that threshold?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Absolutely no doubt that Evatt will have wingback targets in mind – he keeps talking about position-specific analytics so I'd be shocked if we saw any square-peg behaviour there.

I would also expect us to have more than one option on each side, because even without injury and suspension it's hard to imagine a wingback going all season without some rest. The 23-man limitation might require some positional rotation – yon Argyle blog suggested Sarce could play wingback, for instance - and last year's stats suggest Evatt didn't do a whole load of rotation.

Also worth noting that the salary cap, as much as the embargo, could force us to keep numbers down: offering relatively big wages (or win/promotion bonuses) to key players can mean you have to scrimp elsewhere.

Note that players under 21 - currently most of the squad - don't count towards the cap, but they do seem to count toward the embargo limit, if they've played (which not all have). EFL rules somewhat opaque here.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

First day of training and Iles says it’s “expected that goalkeeper coach Matt Gilks will be present after completing the formalities of his contract with the club, and that the former Fleetwood man will also be registered as a player.”

Also “Barnet defender Ricardo Santos, former Leicester and Cambridge centre-half George Taft and Sheffield United keeper Jake Eastwood are the latest names linked with a move to the UniBol.”

[The_Gun]

First day of training and Iles says it’s “expected that goalkeeper coach Matt Gilks will be present after completing the formalities of his contract with the club, and that the former Fleetwood man will also be registered as a player.”

Also “Barnet defender Ricardo Santos, former Leicester and Cambridge centre-half George Taft and Sheffield United keeper Jake Eastwood are the latest names linked with a move to the UniBol.”

Can't say I'm familiar with any of them, but all seem to be in the right age bracket and to have had fairly nondescript careers up until this point. Potential diamonds in the rough perhaps?

[Cocopopper]

First day of training and Iles says it’s “expected that goalkeeper coach Matt Gilks will be present after completing the formalities of his contract with the club, and that the former Fleetwood man will also be registered as a player.”

Also “Barnet defender Ricardo Santos, former Leicester and Cambridge centre-half George Taft and Sheffield United keeper Jake Eastwood are the latest names linked with a move to the UniBol.”

Can't say I'm familiar with any of them, but all seem to be in the right age bracket and to have had fairly nondescript careers up until this point. Potential diamonds in the rough perhaps?

Certainly hope so, given that George Taft signed this evening...

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/1 ... ssion=true

[Bertie Wooster]

First day of training and Iles says it’s “expected that goalkeeper coach Matt Gilks will be present after completing the formalities of his contract with the club, and that the former Fleetwood man will also be registered as a player.”

Also “Barnet defender Ricardo Santos, former Leicester and Cambridge centre-half George Taft and Sheffield United keeper Jake Eastwood are the latest names linked with a move to the UniBol.”

Can't say I'm familiar with any of them, but all seem to be in the right age bracket and to have had fairly nondescript careers up until this point. Potential diamonds in the rough perhaps?

Certainly hope so, given that George Taft signed this evening...

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/1 ... ssion=true

I'll be honest I don't know anything about him, but he's a big lad and apparently is a ball playing centre back which is what Ian Evatt wants from his back three - also the Cambridge fans seem to really rate him.