“Not consistent enough across long periods of the game” – Bolton Wanderers fan pundit offers thoughts on Dapo Afolayan dilemma | OneFootball

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Terrace Talk‘ series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

It’s been a steady start to the season for Bolton Wanderers down in League One.

With 12 matched played, the club currently sit 7th in the division, level on points with the playoff places and Barnsley in 6th.

In recent matches, there have been hiccups, though, with Ian Evatt’s side being beaten by Forest Green and Cheltenham in their last two league outings.

Naturally, there are calls for things to be changed around in such eventualities and one situation that is interesting at the club presently is that of Oladapo Afolayan.

The 25-year-old has had to make do with being a substitute for the most part in the league this season despite having a very strong campaign in the third tier last season in which he scored 12 and assisted seven times.

With that in mind, we asked our Bolton Wanderers fan pundit Oliver Jacques whether or not he thought the 25-year-old was deserving of more starts, or whether Ian Evatt was justified in his selection choices so far.

“I feel like Dapo has been unfortunate to be honest.” Oliver explained to FLW.

“At the same time, I can kind of understand why Evatt isn’t playing with him.

“He’s not really been in form when he’s come on the pitch or even when he’s had the odd chance to start and not consistent enough across long periods of the game. He has little moments and even those are few and far between compared to last season.

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“But I suppose on the back of two defeats, you’d expect him [Evatt] to shake it up a little bit and there’s no reason why he doesn’t get a chance.

I think one of the issues is, as well, we changed to three at the back with wing-backs, and he’s not a wing-back, but he’s naturally a winger.

“So he’s kind of been moved towards the number 10 position and I just don’t think it does him any favours.”

The Verdict

It’s surprising to see Afolayan find himself in this situation to be honest.

After such a strong campaign last year, one could have reasonably assumed he would be one of the first names on the teamsheet this season.

However, it sounds as though the switch to a back three, and the subsequent lack of use of wingers has really hurt him.

As our fan pundit explains, he has been tried as a number 10 and that isn’t where he enjoyed the success he had last season.

He’s too good a player to sit on the bench week in week out, but, you do wonder where the place is for him if Bolton continue to use a system without wingers.