Bolton Wanderers ignored Sheffield Wednesday transfer warning - they must regret it | OneFootball

Bolton Wanderers opted to sign Elias Kachunga and his failed stint was predictable after performing poorly for Sheffield Wednesday.

Bolton Wanderers nearly went the way of neighbours Bury in 2019 but they were kept afloat and then, after an administration-influenced relegation to League Two in 2020, immediately bounced back to gain promotion to League One at the first time of asking in 2021 – but that is where they remain.

One of the many reasons as to why Bolton have frustratingly stagnated and endured more than one or two narrow missed is because of gambles taken in the transfer market – often attempting to be cost-effective with ‘high ceiling’ prospects but then those players failing to develop on the same trajectory as wished.

Amid all those signings, the experienced ‘high floor’ additions were often almost too limited, especially in attack, such as Amadou Bakayoko and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson.

However, perhaps the example of a signing whereby the idea was ‘we know what we’ll get’ before major underperformance was that of former Huddersfield Town and Sheffield Wednesday attacker Elias Kachunga.

Bolton’s then Director of Football, Chris Markham, had been an analyst at Huddersfield and involved in the Terriers’ recruitment in the mid-to-late-2010’s as Town gained their unlikely promotion to the top-flight – and Kachunga was their top scorer that season.

However, four years had passed and the one-cap Democratic Republic of Congo was certainly on the decline, with that one season at Town seeming more and more likely to be anomalous – and yet Bolton took the punt.

Elias Kachunga failed to make enough of an impact at Bolton Wanderers

When Elias Kachunga initially joined in the early August of 2021, it would have seemed unlikely for him to be viewed as one of the key men that will help Bolton get promotion.

When Bolton were then in a promotion run-in at the back end of the 2022/23 campaign, the fact that Kachunga was the preferred option alongside Dion Charles perhaps spoke volumes about the poor level of recruitment generally, as well as that stagnation and overly cautious attitudes that cost Bolton during that period.

That is because, in those couple of seasons, Kachunga hadn’t really improved or shown much to suggest he should be the starting striker later on in the project; things just didn’t go to plan, and he certainly didn’t help.

He arrived as the expected squad player after a very underwhelming stint at Huddersfield’s Yorkshire rivals Sheffield Wednesday, where he had failed to score in 27 Championship appearances in the previous campaign.

Having scored 12 for Huddersfield in their play-off winning campaign, the former Borussia Monchengladbach man went on to notch just four goals in his next 102 league appearances ahead of his move to Bolton.

Even at Bolton, he scored just two league goals in 70 appearances as the Trotters failed to deliver on their expectations, ahead of his move to Cambridge United on a free transfer, where he failed to prevent the U’s from succumbing to relegation in 2025.

Elias Kachunga had too few good moments at Bolton Wanderers

It would be very harsh to lambast the signing and then subsequent displays of Kachunga at Bolton without at least acknowledging the genuinely special and memorable moments he did have in a Whites shirt.

As Wanderers enjoyed a magnificent day out at Wembley Stadium in April 2023, defeating eventual League One winners Plymouth Argyle by four goals to nil in the EFL Trophy final, Kachunga was genuinely superb.

Involved in the second goal and then the scorer of the third, Kachunga gave Bolton supporters reason to remember him fondly, especially with it being him that broke the deadlock in their hard-fought 2-0 win away at Accrington Stanley in the semi-finals.

However, beyond that, it is genuinely quite difficult to recall a moment or a period of time where Kachunga delivered for Wanderers and that is perhaps not his fault but rather the club and their recruitment.

A good moment to summarise Kachunga’s impact at Bolton would be that Dion Charles was once mistakenly sent off instead of him for violent conduct in a 1-0 win over Forest Green Rovers in January 2023.

It wasn’t Kachunga’s fault that Bolton’s best player at that time was sent off but his actions very much contributed to it and the comical calamity of the moment is a good representation of the two seasons he spent as one of the club’s primary attackers; notching eight goals in 91 matches across all competitions.