Steven Schumacher knows ex-Lincoln City ace holds key to Bolton Wanderers' play-off success | OneFootball

Steven Schumacher is finding clarity in his team selection and Ethan Erhahon could be the missing piece for Bolton Wanderers.

Bolton Wanderers find themselves heading into the League One play-offs once again after what has felt like quite a frustrating and fairly bizarre campaign in the third-tier.

With dramatic turnarounds and a major reliance on scoring late goals, Bolton do manage to find themselves in an excellent spot to finish as the best of the rest in the division, behind the automatically promoted pair of Lincoln City and Cardiff City.

Steven Schumacher, with the help of Sporting Director Fergal Harkin and Head of Recruitment Jimmy Dickinson, both of whom joined the club last summer, was given license to transform the squad at the Toughsheet Community Stadium in his first full transfer window at the end of last season.

Teething issues were inevitable, and the side gelling was always going to take time, but some supporters have been concerned by the lack of consistency, both in terms of results and performances as well as the general team selection.

However, as Wanderers race towards a third play-off campaign in four seasons, Schumacher is beginning to find some clarity with regards to his best eleven – albeit there is still a missing piece as Ethan Erhahon regains his fitness.

Steven Schumacher is finding clarity with his Bolton side

Throughout the campaign, Steven Schumacher has chopped and changed with a lot of players struggling to put a run of performances together but some fans suggesting he can be too trigger-happy when it comes to his dropping of players and rotating of his side.

That said, Schumacher’s ability to make substitutes that regularly impact games has led to them remaining the major late threat in League One matches this season and, if you make yourself undroppable like Amario Cozier-Duberry or Sam Dalby, then you do stay in the side.

In what was and is a very difficult month on paper to finish the campaign, Schumacher may be able to add a couple more names to the undroppable list with Wanderers now finding some clarity and a few more players finding a sustained run of good form.

The two newest recruits in the winter transfer window, Ruben Rodrigues and Johnny Kenny, have shone this month in defeats of Plymouth Argyle and Stevenage, as well as thrilling draws against Stockport County and Huddersfield Town.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Wanderers may well have determined at least five of the six ahead of the defence, with Josh Sheehan also surely to become an ever-present in the play-off campaign.

Rodrigues, who provided both assists as Oxford United defeated the Trotters by two goals to nil in the play-off final at Wembley Stadium in 2024, has shown his intelligence and technical quality that compliments the industry and endeavour of a front two of Kenny and Dalby that balances really well in an old-fashioned sense; with Kenny’s endless running and ability to play almost as a second-striker, and Dalby’s target man style.

With Cozier-Duberry back fit and in form, he is also the key man on the right-wing, leaving just one spot up for grabs, rather than the usual three or four that has often been the case this year.

Ethan Erhahon provides steel for Bolton

That space should be filled by Ethan Erhahon, with the Scottish midfielder edging his way closer to a first-team return, just in time for the real crunch end of the campaign.

Having arrived from the eventual champions, Lincoln, in the summer, for a reported fee of £750,000, Erhahon, like many, has had a bit of an up and down time, mainly due to injuries occasionally halting his momentum.

At his best, though, Bolton have tended to be at their best with the performance of the season, a 4-1 demolition of local rivals Wigan Athletic back in September, seeing Erhahon display all of the attributes that Bolton have lacked in midfield for quite some time.

Good enough on the ball that he doesn’t cause an issue when building up, while also being able to burst past a player on occasion, Erhahon provides an aggression and intelligence in the defensive part of the game that lays a platform for the abundance of attackers at Schumacher’s disposal, as was shown by Wanderers’ best winning streak of the season, four matches, from mid-January on, when Erhahon starred before injury.

In this recent run where some players have made spots in the starting eleven their own, Schumacher has played quite an attacking style with midfield pairing of just Sheehan and Rodrigues.

It has, somewhat surprisingly, not been exposed in a defensive sense but there will be a concern that in the higher-stakes games of a play-off semi-final and a play-off final, there would be gaps to be hit.

Especially as, while the attacking efficiency and productivity has improved, Wanderers have become easier to simply play through the middle of, conceding two at home to Stockport and three at home to Huddersfield, albeit with ten men, while being torn apart and fortunate to only lost 2-0 away at Cardiff City this month.

The man that has benefitted from the lack of other fit midfield options and, therefore, this re-jigged almost ‘all out attack’ approach has been Barbados international winger Thierry Gale.

Gale, again supreme when putting in his best performance of the season against Wigan at the start of the season, has also been wildly inconsistent, albeit with some improvement in recent weeks.

It hasn’t been enough, yet at least, though, to suggest Wanderers should risk their potentially very open system to accommodate the Barbadian, whereas the likes of Dalby, Kenny, Rodrigues and Cozier-Duberry have made it clear they should be on the teamsheet, regardless of the shape or style.

The other bonus of Erhahon then coming into the eleven to bolster the midfield alongside Sheehan, with Cozier-Duberry on the right, would be the flexibility of the attack, too, with Rodrigues capable of drifting left to create a 4-4-2 but also the possibility of the Portuguese attacking midfielder playing in the attacking midfield role and Kenny playing out-wide to sure things up in a 4-2-3-1.

Gale, as well as the improving Ibrahim Cissoko, would then also be quite a tantalizing option off the bench for Schumacher – something that has worked so well for him this season.

A month or so ago, as had been the case for much of the campaign, Schumacher was heading into the run-in without seemingly much idea of what he wanted from his best eleven, but it has become a lot clearer in recent weeks, and Erhahon may well be the missing piece.