Ending Bolton Wanderers' L1 nightmare: Exciting Oxford United blueprint can help Steven Schumacher | OneFootball

Steven Schumacher should take inspiration from Oxford United to deliver League One promotion at Bolton Wanderers.

Bolton Wanderers are heading into the League One run-in in a very strong position and in excellent form, too, but their hopes of automatic promotion are fading fast.

The Trotters’ recent 5-1 demolition of Exeter City at St James Park extended Bolton’s current unbeaten run of form to ten matches since a 1-0 loss to Port Vale in the round of 16 of the EFL Trophy in January.

That defeat to the Valiants brought about a lot of pressure on manager Steven Schumacher, who had overseen a woeful run of form in the previous month and a half or so.

However, their defeat of local rivals Wigan a few days later, as well as some excellent additions in the January transfer window, has seen a transformation once again.

Such was their minor collapse over the festive period, Wanderers remain ten points behind Lincoln City, despite sitting third, and the likeliest route for them to finally get back into the Championship is surely via the play-offs.

Schumacher is getting more consistent performances and results with a variety of ways of playing and a continuation of his ‘tinkerman’ like approach in terms of team selection.

That means pretty much everything remains on the table from a tactical perspective and one possibility that should be looked at would be going back to a dark day in Bolton’s recent past.

Bolton should follow Oxford blueprint to finally achieve League One promotion

Having narrowly missed out on promotion on the final day of the 2023/24 season, Bolton set up a play-off final with Oxford United at Wembley Stadium, succumbing to a 2-0 defeat against the U’s with one of the worst performances that a Bolton side had put in for many years.

That game saw Josh Murphy notch a first-half brace to decide the game, with both of those goals provided by Portuguese attacking midfielder Ruben Rodrigues.

Rodrigues, though, wasn’t necessarily playing in an out-and-out so-called ‘number ten’ position but more as one of two ‘eights’, alongside Tyler Goodrham, and ahead of deep-lying midfielder Cameron Brannagan.

Rodrigues was one of the many impressive new recruits brought in by Bolton boss Schumacher in the winter window and now the former Plymouth Argyle boss has a task on his hands fitting everyone into the side, with other signings being Jack Bonham, David Harrington, Lewis Temple, Rob Apter, Corey Blackett-Taylor and Johnny Kenny.

That system deployed by Des Buckingham had been developed in the final few weeks of the campaign, following Oxford’s 5-0 hammering at the hands of Bolton in mid-March of the regular season.

Bolton inspired a change that eventually got Oxford promotion, and it could well be that Bolton now take inspiration from that tactical evolution of the U’s to avenge their own failure.

Josh Sheehan and Ruben Rodrigues could thrive in this system for Bolton

On that day, Bolton played their typical back three with Josh Sheehan as the deep-lying midfielder. However, as was often the case in tight games, Sheehan, due to the fact he more or less occupied the same space as captain and middle centre-back Ricardo Santos, became ineffective and squeezed out.

In a 4-1-4-1 system, that deep midfielder becomes imperative for splitting the centre-backs and having more space in front of them to more or less dictate either the tempo of the game or each individual move – and is a role that was played expertly well by Brannagan, who carries similar traits to Sheehan by way of being a more ball-dominant and passing defensive midfielder, rather than a destroyer.

Moving away from the 4-2-3-1 and sacrificing one of the so-called ‘destroyers’, Ethan Erhahon and Xavier Simons, and allowing Sheehan to be the lone man there would allow Schumacher to then play Rodrigues alongside another midfielder and cram in the now plethora of attackers across that four.

It is a system that has been favoured by Pep Guardiola in the last couple of seasons, too, as it allows the four behind the striker to more or less interchange, should, like is pretty much always the case for Manchester City, you have the ball so much you remain defensively secure.

It is a system that could therefore suit the likes of Kyle Dempsey and John McAtee to play alongside Rodrigues, rather than all vying for the same spot, and could even see the likes of Rob Apter, or perhaps even Amario Cozier-Duberry, get more freedom with that shifting of the systems.

Dictating the ball enough is something that is absolutely imperative, though, because it would be high risk – and the dropping of Erhahon in particular would seem like lunacy to many Bolton fans but there have been far too many draws this season, undermining their generally extremely impressive campaign, and perhaps loosening things up a bit and allowing for a bit more risk could help matters.

Schumacher has chopped and changed throughout the campaign, and even this current run has seen the 3-4-3, 3-5-2, 4-2-3-1 and 4-4-2 systems all used – perhaps one more shift could be what finally delivers Bolton back to the second-tier.