Bolton Wanderers could benefit from League One play-off failure under Steven Schumacher – here’s why | OneFootball

Failure to reach the play-offs and failure to get promotion from League One, once again, could be a blessing in disguise for Bolton Wanderers.

There is a cliché that is often proved to be untrue that a team may benefit from a relegation in order to be able to ‘clean house’ in a way and be able to refresh the squad and the whole outlook of the club.

Well, that cliché can also be true, whilst also often proven to be untrue, by a team failing to gain a promotion. That could be because they aren’t ready, and they are doing it ahead of schedule and would get chewed up and spat out at a higher level, potentially harming them further in the long-term.

In the case of Bolton Wanderers, though, failure to get promotion would allow them to do the former as if they had been relegated: clean house and refresh the squad and the outlook.

With humiliating performances still being put in even with a change of manager half-way through the campaign, the players have proven, whether it be technically or mentally, as former boss Ian Evatt suggested on several occasions, they simply aren’t up to it.

Bolton could do with a recharge and a bit of a mini-rebuild this summer in order to attack the next few years because there is a fear that fluking (and it would be fluking) a play-off place and then promotion this season would only see them set back by a couple of years when they are relegated next season.

Schumacher’s need to be ruthless this summer

When Football Ventures took over the club in 2019, their main goal for that season was to make the club operate as an actual football club again, having been on the verge of extinction.

So, the following season, to gain automatic promotion at the first time of asking from the fourth-tier under the management of Ian Evatt was viewed as a success. To finish ninth in League One in the 2021/22 campaign with another ridiculous run of form in the second-half of the season was success.

Finishing fifth and winning the EFL Trophy in the 2022/23 season was a success but had its frustrations and Bolton couldn’t stay too much longer outside of the top two divisions. Failing to get automatic promotion on the final day of a season where they had threatened to run away with things and then being humbled at Wembley Stadium by Oxford United in the play-off final last year was a failure and then this season, following further investment into the squad, has been embarrassing for the club.

Whether the squad of players recognise it as an embarrassment is something that is unknown and will hurt supporters, because the regularity of which they turn in displays of such meagre character and personality is almost tedious at this stage.

After another demolition at the weekend against Barnsley, losing by four goals to one at Oakwell, many have drawn a line under many within this squad because it follows a couple of years of regular capitulations at key moments.

Steven Schumacher, yet to have experienced a full transfer window with the club, having been brought in just a couple of days before the end of the winter window, will have to himself now judge how many of these players are worth persisting with.

Staying down may be best for Bolton

The last thing a club would want when gaining promotion to another division is to have to completely rebuild their squad to stand any chance of survival because doing that in one summer is, firstly, unrealistic and, more importantly, potentially harmful to the long-term financial security of the club.

Staying down allows Bolton to get ruthless at a lower level and still be able to be competitive enough to challenge for automatic promotion in League One next season, with the intention being to bring in players this summer that would be able to compete in the Championship.

Several key first-team players of this Bolton squad, such as Nathan Baxter, Ricardo Santos and Gethin Jones, are out of contract at the Toughsheet Community Stadium and, aside from the former, albeit even with some reservations, there is a consensus that Santos and Jones, fundamental players in League Two promotion back in 2021, will now leave the club.

There are also several players who would surely be heavily linked with leaving the club. Josh Sheehan, for example, was Bolton’s Player of the Year last season but has failed to turn up on big occasions fairly consistently and is someone who was linked with a move away in January. At 30, it could well be time for the former Newport County man to now move on.

The futures of Carlos Mendes Gomes, Victor Adeboyejo, Klaidi Lolos and Kyle Dempsey, among many others, will all be inevitable talking points, too, and that amount of turnover is not something you could or probably should do if you are looking to create a semblance of stability ahead of performing and playing at a much tougher, higher level.

Another season in League One would give Schumacher and Bolton more freedom to get ruthless this summer. It isn’t something they have much a choice in any way, because their performances and results wouldn’t be getting them up anytime soon anyway – and that could be a blessing in disguise.

When taking over mid-way through the campaign with Plymouth in the 2021/22 season, Schumacher’s Pilgrims missed out on the play-off places on the final day of the campaign, before picking up over 100 points and winning the League One title the following season once Schumacher had been able to put his marker down.

Bolton fans will hope for the same this summer and beyond.