John McAtee and another Bolton Wanderers player must escape in January | OneFootball

Bolton Wanderers duo Joel Randall and John McAtee should try and force an exit from the Trotters in the January transfer window.

Bolton Wanderers overhauled their squad in the summer to try and play a different style and system this season and, after some teething issues, the Trotters are beginning to click into gear.

The pre-season expectation remained promotion but some of the more patient and forgiving supporters may well have found tangible progress on last season’s farcical end to the campaign enough to ensure Steven Schumacher still had the trust of the fanbase.

However, as the season has gone on, the standard at the top of League One does appear to be a little bit lower than previous seasons, whilst the quality of this Bolton side appears to be higher, and the gelling of the team is happening quicker.

A part of their shift saw Wanderers move away from playing with the back three, which had been imposed throughout the vast majority of the Ian Evatt era, particularly in League One, and that led to the departures of several players that didn’t really fit into a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-4-2 system in the summer.

Aaron Collins was sold to Milton Keynes Dons, whilst Klaidi Lolos found his way out to Peterborough United with Carlos Mendes Gomes and Szabolcs Schon then departing for Exeter City and Fehervar on loan respectively on the final day of the summer transfer window.

The sheer volume of so-called ‘number tens’ was already an issue in the Bolton squad and so two of them remained, John McAtee and Joel Randall, but neither have nailed down their spot.

If Bolton are to persist with a 4-2-3-1, then finding someone more suited to the role than Marcus Forss and more consistent or simply with more quality for the position than Randall or McAtee will be imperative; with both likely to fall further down the pecking order and, therefore, needing to force a way out.

John McAtee

On the final day of the summer window, it was reported that former club Barnsley were offering a way out for John McAtee but a deal never materialised and he has gone on to be a bit-part player for the Trotters ever since.

Having stated in an interview in pre-season that he wanted to become a proper attacking midfielder, rather than something of a second striker or even a centre forward on occasion, McAtee was given around an hour on the opening day against Stockport County in that position, before a shortage of strikers saw him move up-front for the remainder of that game.

Since then, McAtee has found himself on the substitutes bench or out of the squad by Schumacher and so, despite having scored a couple of games later against Barnsley and having made an impact, there is an argument to suggest that he has been harshly treated in that regard.

However, ever since joining on a permanent basis from Luton Town in the summer of 2024, McAtee has often frustrated supporters with a general lack of quality and failing to find much rhythm with the players around him, despite an obvious and admirable lack of endeavour and enthusiasm.

A move would open a spot for Bolton that they appeared open to allowing just a couple of months ago and a move may well be best suited for both parties.

Joel Randall

The other ‘number ten’, or at least the other more natural ‘number ten’ in the Bolton squad is former Peterborough midfielder Joel Randall, who joined for an undisclosed fee in January.

Having been a long-term target for Evatt and Bolton, Randall’s situation at Bolton is also one that he can feel harshly done by, having been targeted specifically by the now Blackpool boss before Evatt then left about a week after he made the move north from Cambridgeshire.

The 26-year-old Salisbury-born midfielder has again shown a bit more industry this season, with the more intense and aggressive style of play under Schumacher, but there would be a reasonable argument to suggest his best work comes from making runs off the ball.

With the left-winger in this current Bolton side tasked with getting in behind and making similar runs to Randall, and Mason Burstow someone who can adeptly link the play when dropping off the centre-backs, the space he would occupy with intelligent runs appears nullified.

That can often lead to a lot of criticism of him ‘going missing’ in games but that is probably more of a tactical problem for Randall to solve, given he has very rarely, if ever, been able to dictate the game in a more classical attacking midfield style.

Again, it was a reasonably significant outlay for Bolton and there are mitigating factors for Randall but he is another that doesn’t quite seem to fit in a position that Wanderers could do with clicking a bit more in the second-half of the campaign.