Neil Lennon found Bolton Wanderers a hidden gem - he couldn't cope with the chaos | OneFootball

Prince-Desir Gouano went on to thrive after Bolton Wanderers, but the chaos of the club made his stint an underwhelming one.

Back in the mid-2010s, Bolton Wanderers were a mess off the pitch and heading towards near extinction, with debt having piled up and Ken Anderson, who had taken over from Eddie Davies, making things quite a lot worse.

The darkest days came in the late 2010s, which saw administration in 2019 having failed to play their final home game due to a player strike in the 2018/19 season and then a run of 5-0 losses at the start of 2019/20 season due to a lack of first-team players.

A goalless draw with Coventry City in August 2019 did, for many, look like it could be the final game Bolton would play, but, despite neighbours Bury being expelled from the EFL, the Whites earned a reprieve thanks to the takeover by Football Ventures.

The years that had led up to those days, which saw Wanderers fall into League Two, had seen relegation from the Premier League in 2012; a year before the TV money boom came into full effect.

Wanderers’ debt was catastrophic, and yet they continued to play on in the Championship, with former Celtic boss Neil Lennon brought in during the autumn of 2014, to try and arrest the slide under Dougie Freedman and lead the Whites back to the top-flight.

His reign was a chaotic one that instead ended in a humiliating relegation from the second-tier in 2015 and plenty of players failed to benefit from his management, and one standout for that is Prince-Desir Gouano, who could have been a gem in the EFL.

Bolton Wanderers failed Prince-Desir Gouano during his time at the club

Prince-Desir Gouano arrived from Atalanta, having been an exciting prospect coming through at Juventus, and for those two clubs to have been on his CV before arriving at Bolton, it would reasonable to suggest it was a bit of a coup.

The Frenchman was forming a part of a back-line that had been almost ripped up from the previous campaign, with the departures of both Matt Mills and Tim Ream, as well as the arrivals of plenty of new faces, although the new signings didn't appear to be part of a clear and concise recruitment strategy.

For example, the full-backs brought in were Francesco Pisano and Jose Manuel Casado, as well as Lawrie Wilson; Pisano a previous one-club man at Cagliari, whilst the latter two had been journeymen in both Spain and England. None of them appeared to be signed with a potential to sell on for profit, but none of them were guaranteed certainties to be able to cut it regularly in the Championship either, and it was all a bit bizarre.

Prince would often be partnered with fellow young defender from the continent, Derik Osede, who had joined on a free transfer from Real Madrid, and it was a very unreliable defence that fairly regularly capitulated.

The chaotic off-field shenanigans had led to a situation where Neil Lennon's fairly bizarre recruitment strategy, that had been seen by some other unknown arrivals in the previous January, become the key source of squad building for the Whites.

That January, for example, had seen the arrivals of the likes of Matija Boben on loan from Ivancna Gorica, Simeon Slavchev on a temporary basis from Sporting CP and Rochinha from Benfica, among many other unusual and unexpected deals. Those three players made a combined total of five appearances for the club.

Adam Bogdan, Andy Lonergan, Keith Andrews, Jermaine Beckford and Craig Davies were among the experienced first-teamers to leave at the end of their contracts, whilst Eidur Gudjohnsen joined Shijiazhuang Ever Bright, with Alex Baptiste sold to Middlesbrough and Rob Hall and Conor Wilkinson both moving out on loan

The context and situation at Bolton was never going to provide the best and most stable environment for someone plying their trade away from home in the EFL for the first time; and it showed, despite glimpses of quality from Prince.

The Frenchman made his Wanderers debut on the opening day of the season in a goalless draw against Derby County, and he performed extremely well as Wanderers sought to build and kick on from that – but, both club and player, found the behind the scenes chaos too much to deal with.

Throughout the first-half of the campaign, though, it became clearer and clearer that the bizarre off-field running of the club had badly let Prince and his potential down, and he struggled to be consistent amid the chaos.

He should have been signed as a player to be nurtured and allowed to flourish as the secondary partner in the back-line, but instead he found himself emerging as the senior man in a defence and a team that was chaotic, both on and off the field.

Prince-Desir Gouano struggled at Bolton but thrived elsewhere

He played all 90 minutes of Bolton’s opening ten matches of the campaign, but after a 4-3 loss against Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road, in a game they had again played quite well in, he was dropped to the bench for defeats against Burnley and Birmingham City.

He returned to the side for a clash with Leeds United and played extremely well for 71 minutes as a struggling Bolton side led the Yorkshire outfit after a first-half Shola Ameobi strike.

However, having made a mistake in possession, Prince then fouled Italian striker Mirco Antenucci in trying to make amends, giving away a penalty that Antenucci then scored to equalise, and also resulted in Prince being sent off.

After that, the Frenchman found himself in and out of the side with some strong individual performances once again undermined by the chaos of a calamitous campaign, both on and off the pitch, for the club.

His penultimate appearance for Wanderers saw him start and play all 90 minutes in a 1-0 derby day victory over Blackburn Rovers during the festive period, but he would be gone a month later.

Notable mistakes in that defeat at QPR and against Fulham at home, as well as the calamity against Leeds, stick in the mind for Bolton supporters, but the mitigation of all that was going on at the club leave many with regret, too.

That is because Prince had shown signs of being a quality defender, and he went on to do so again at both Vitoria Guimaraes and Amiens, the latter where he was captained, in the top-flights of both Portugal and France.

Had Prince arrived at Bolton during a more settled time then he could well have gone on to show that eventual potential with the Trotters. Instead, they both failed each other.