Notts County should cash in on key man amid Bolton Wanderers interest – They may already have his replacement | OneFootball

Notts County should sanction tbe sale of Alassana Jatta this summer, with Mai Traore already a potentially ideal replacement.

Notts County reached the League Two play-off semi-finals this season before a 2-0 aggregate loss to eventual play-off winners AFC Wimbledon, due to a couple of 1-0 losses last month.

The Magpies, despite what was a much-improved campaign in terms of league finish, are set for a summer of change at Meadow Lane, with manager Stuart Maynard having already departed, whilst experienced key player David McGoldrick will also leave the club.

As they begin a mini rebuild over the summer transfer window, they are also bracing themselves for interest in Gambia international striker Alassana Jatta, with Football League World exclusively revealing that Bolton Wanderers are interested in the 26-year-old.

Whilst many County supporters may be content with his departure due to poor performances and returns in the second-half of the campaign, the club may well be reluctant to part company with the former Viborg forward.

However, as County continue to expand their scouting network, the sale of Jatta is one that should be sanctioned by the club, especially because they may well already have his replacement on the books in Mai Traore.

Jatta’s poor end to the campaign

Jatta joined County for a fee of 150,000 euros in the winter transfer window of 2024, and he showed his scoring touch with an excellent run of form in the spring of last year, notching five goals in a run of five games.

In his first full season in England, the Gambian attacker had scored 13 goals in 18 appearances by the close of play on New Year’s Day, and the club were very much seeing a return on their investment.

However, with Plymouth Argyle reportedly seeing a bid of £750,000 rejected for the striker in January, many supporters believed that had a knock-on effect in his motivation and performance levels, whereby he managed just seven more goals in his next 21 League Two games.

Jatta, having only played professionally in Estonia and as a fringe player in Denmark before his move to the EFL, has shown a capability to score goals at a good rate in a team that attempted to shift their style of football to becoming more deliberate and less gung-ho.

However, a good fee for Jatta, at the age of 26, would represent excellent business by the club and they could perhaps move onto someone still seemingly hungry to prove themselves at Meadow Lane.

Mai Traore could emulate Jatta

Continuing to scour the Scandinavian market, Traore joined Notts County from Fredrikstad on the final day of the 2025 winter transfer window, moving to Nottingham on a two-and-a-half-year deal.

The former Guinea U23 international had an impressive scoring record in Sweden’s lower leagues before earning himself a move to Norwegian Eliteserien side Viking in 2021.

Having spent time out on loan at Oud-Heverlee Leuven and Tromso, he switched to Fredrikstad on a permanent basis in 2024, but, like Jatta, didn’t necessarily establish himself in the top-flight of Norwegian football.

There is evident potential there and someone to be persisted with at County, albeit he didn’t quite have the same impact in the second-half of the 2024/25 campaign as to what Jatta the season before.

That said, though, Jatta came into a mid-table side striving to find an eventual replacement for Macaulay Langstaff with little to play for, Traore has instead been thrown into the deep end in the midst a promotion race, competing for a spot in the side alongside Jatta, as well as the likes of McGoldrick, Jodi Jones and Will Jarvis.

If Notts County can cash in well on Jatta, whilst providing Traore with more playing time in the 2024/25 season, they may well be able to unearth their Jatta replacement within their own squad, whilst also proving themselves to be smart operators in the transfer market.