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Ricardo Santos has dropped a hint that his long-term future will remain at Bolton Wanderers.
The club skipper has one year left to run on his current contract but said he wanted to wait until the end of the season before sitting down to discuss a longer stay.
A handful of clubs in the Championship have been tracking his progress in League One this season but Santos has indicated that talks between him and the club have been going well.
“I said I will wait until the end of the season, and It is the end of the season now, so hopefully I can stay here,” said the big centre-half, who picked up the Players’ Players of the Year trophy at Sunday night’s awards ceremony. “Me and the gaffer and my agent have been speaking so, yeah, talks look positive.”
Santos and his young family have settled well since signing at Bolton from Barnet in the summer of 2020, and the 26-year-old was handed the captain’s armband in October following the departure of Anthony Sarcevic to Stockport County.
Now firmly a first team favourite among the supporters, the defender has appreciated the welcome he has been given since moving to the North West.
“It is becoming a real family-based club,” he said. “Just the backing they give us every week, they are amazing and the boys all really appreciate it.”
Santos missed the end of last season with a hamstring injury but anticipates being fully fit for the start of pre-season in June, where Wanderers will travel to his native Portugal for a training camp before starting their programme of friendlies.
Although the Whites missed out on the play-offs, which had been Ian Evatt’s ultimate aim, the squad did meet the manager’s points target which was set at the start of January.
Santos feels Wanderers will be a stronger and more consistent prospect next season having gained a measure of experience back at this level of football.
“We finished on 73 points – that is a lot of points,” he said. “In recent years, you get promoted or get in the play-offs at least with 73 points.
“Next year is looking promising. I think this year we had a little blip around October but we had a lot of injuries and Covid at the time as well. I think that is probably the reason we haven’t got in the play-offs. But next year we just want to win the league, nothing less.
“I think people forget we are a newly promoted team. This was our first season back in League One so we have had a taste of it now. Honestly, I don’t see a team that is better than us, technically, so next year we will show that.”
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