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Dapo Afolayan is confident he has room to grow with Wanderers next season.
Watched by the likes of Fulham and Cardiff City, Bolton’s top scorer is not losing sleep over any speculation that might hit the headlines this summer.
For during his 15 months at the UniBol, the former West Ham winger’s name has rarely been far from people’s lips.
Crucially, for Bolton fans, the 24-year-old is planning ahead for life in a Bolton shirt and playing in a side he believes can take their excellent post-January form beyond the summer.
“If you look at our results since January and our performances, I think we have lost three in 20 and played against some big teams,” he said.
“We have shown we have more than enough to compete with those top teams and now it is about us finding that consistency because personally, and as a squad, we have had too many times where we have been very, very good, and then below par.
“We need to be consistently good and then add those performances like a 6-0 against Sunderland. That is what a team that wins the league looks like.”
At various stages of the season Afolayan has been Wanderers’ poster boy – be it for his goalscoring, his dribbling skills or the more effective creative spark he has added to his game since promotion to League One.
There have been spells of criticism too – not that they have been allowed to affect him.
“I don’t really worry about it,” he said. “I don’t read into a lot of the things that are said.
“I know how I am performing, the manager knows how I am performing, and if he has an issue with anything then he will tell me honestly. We are very, very open with each other and that is one thing that has helped me improve massively. He has always told me areas of my game that I can improve.
“And that way when I do, and hopefully if I do, step up to the next level as a player then I can always perform. I think it is necessary.”
Afolayan reckons the biggest improvement in his game this season has been at the business end of the pitch, where 14 goals put him in an exclusive club of just three players – the others being Eoin Doyle and Michael Ricketts – who have scored more than a dozen goals in a single season over the last 20 years at Bolton.
“I think this season I have improved most in terms of an end product,” he added.
“I have got 20 goal involvements this year and that’s 17 more than last year, so that has improved especially.
“I am making better decisions on the ball, when I am dribbling, when to shoot and find the right moments.”
As a team, Afolayan also feels the team has evolved over the course of the campaign and learned to bring the best out of each attacking player.
“Especially early on it felt like that,” he said. “It helps the longer you play alongside someone the better an understanding you get with one another. That’s what you are beginning to see now with the players we brought in since January. Jon (Dadi Bodvarsson) is a perfect example of it, and how he is flourishing now. We understand him and what his strengths are, it was the same with me earlier in the season.”
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