Why Bolton Wanderers made a John McAtee mistake on September 1st | OneFootball

Bolton Wanderers should have allowed John McAtee to leave on transfer deadline day, amid interest from Barnsley.

Bolton Wanderers have experienced a major squad overhaul this summer, with the Trotters able to bring in 14 new signings, including two additions on the final day of the summer transfer window.

Steven Schumacher, with help from the club’s new Sporting Director, Fergal Harkin, as well as the new Head of Recruitment, Jimmy Dickinson, who worked with Schumacher at Bury and Plymouth Argyle, have transformed Bolton’s squad.

Lots of key first-teamers have departed and the squad has been transformed in order to play a completely different style of football from what went before under Ian Evatt, and there is also a major shift in the system with Bolton going from a back three, for which they had played for almost half a decade, to a 4-2-3-1 shape.

Bolton have plenty of defensive options and they now have some crucial extra players in the final third, both up-front and out-wide, but one man who appears to be surplus to requirements would be John McAtee.

Bolton should have shifted John McAtee on

On the final day of the transfer window, it was reported by The Bolton News that Barnsley had made an offer to sign John McAtee on loan from the Whites.

McAtee, who shone for the Tykes on loan from Luton Town during the 2023/24 campaign, which ended with McAtee scoring in a play-off semi-final loss to Wanderers, has instead stayed put.

He even started Bolton’s slender 1-0 defeat of Rotherham United in their first EFL Trophy group stage match of the season, and it was a reasonable performance, but him featuring in that game perhaps shows how far his stock has fallen.

Having been chased by Bolton for much of last summer and widely deemed as almost a marquee addition, McAtee has yet to show what his best position is as a footballer.

Brought into a bizarrely put together squad that has since been dismantled as one of an array of attacking midfield/forward types, such as Klaidi Lolos, Scott Arfield, Carlos Mendes Gomes and Aaron Collins; McAtee struggled badly.

Now only McAtee remains as a so-called ‘number ten’, which he believes to be the position he wants to play, alongside Joel Randall, who joined in January, and potentially Kyle Dempsey.

However, despite the fact that that would suggest he has a sniff of getting in ahead of Randall and Dempsey as the out and out attacking midfielder, there are now signs that Schumacher is beginning to a shift away from the 4-2-3-1 and that could spell the end for the former Grimsby Town man.

Another shift in the shape means John McAtee should have left

In a 1-1 draw with Blackpool at Bloomfield Road in a game in which Bolton were perhaps the better of the two sides, their fourth successive 1-1 draw, McAtee was left out of the squad, as had been the

case in their 1-1 draw against Lincoln City a week prior.

On the opening day, McAtee was named as the starting ‘number ten’ behind Mason Burstow, but 60 minutes into that 2-0 loss at Stockport County, McAtee found himself as the out and out striker again with Burstow needing to come off and a lack of attacking depth.

Since then, McAtee has not made another start in League One, despite scoring a late equaliser against Barnsley at Oakwell in another 1-1 draw in mid-August.

So, it could be viewed as fairly harsh to almost write McAtee’s season off at Bolton when he has only experienced 60 minutes from the start in his preferred position.

However, with Schumacher playing a midfield three of Ethan Erhahon, Josh Sheehan and Aaron Morley in that clash with Blackpool; there are now signs that Wanderers are shift to a 4-3-3 rather than a 4-2-3-1, even though Morley did play in a more advanced role, albeit very unnaturally.

If it was to become a 4-3-3 more often than not, which may well suit the squad better, then it has to be said that there is no room at all for McAtee in that eleven, nor the squad.

If that is the case, then Wanderers preventing the Walkden-born attacker from departing on deadline day could fairly be viewed as a mistake, unbalancing their squad.