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At times it might not have felt like a successful season in front of goal for Dion Charles but as we approach the halfway stage, he might do well to count his blessings.
The Wanderers striker scored his 10th goal of the season against Exeter City on Saturday, becoming the first player to get into double figures for the club this side of Christmas since the great Nicolas Anelka 15 years ago.
Prolific goalscorers have hardly been prevalent at Bolton over the past two decades but in reaching the milestone in 24 appearances, there is every reason to hope the 27-year-old will be the man to finally puncture the 20-goal mark by May.
After Eoin Doyle’s near miss with 19 in 2020/21, Michael Ricketts continues to stand as the last player to top 20, when he helped to fire Sam Allardyce’s side into the Premier League in 2000/01.
Three players got into double figures that season – including defender Gudni Bergsson – and since then there have been 20 other occasions, including one from Ricketts himself the following year.
There are some famous names on the list, from Kevin Davies to Youri Djorkaeff, Kevin Nolan to Stelios Giannakopoulos, but nobody has managed to match Ricketts for total, or indeed sheer density of goals since the turn of the millennium.
Charles has already scored 20 in a single campaign for Accrington Stanley at League One level. And even in his first 12 months at Wanderers it has become clear that confidence is a major part of his game.
After a purple patch of six goals in eight games at the start of his Bolton career he went 14 games for club and country without hitting the back of the net. The drought was noticed – but the Whites’ fine form in the latter stages of last season ensured he got some leeway from the general public.
Two goals against Fleetwood Town on the last day ended the barren streak and gave everyone reason for optimism in the future. Since August Charles has kept the tally ticking over – albeit three of his goals have come in the cup competitions – but he has found his strike rate criticised, and manager Ian Evatt has been forced to defend him under claims that his side do not have enough firepower to sustain a promotion challenge.
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Evatt has maintained for some time that a change of luck was on the cards, not only for Charles but for the whole of his front line.
It has become a well-worn footballing cliché when a manager insists he would be more worried about the form of a misfiring striker if he “wasn’t getting the chances” and in the immortal words of Billy Shankly, then describing Liverpool’s Roger Hunt: “Yes, he misses a few, but he gets in the right place to miss them.”
These days there is a way of measuring the quality of chances that a team creates, although the xG (expected goals) metric often divides opinion among fans as to its effectiveness.
Evatt is unquestionably a subscriber to such data, and according to leading website The Analyst, Wanderers remain one of only three teams in League One (the others being Port Vale and Morecambe) whose overall xG exceeds the number of goals they have scored.
In simple terms, Bolton should be scoring more goals because they are creating better chances. It all boils down to probability.
Charles has seen his fortunes improve. A late equaliser against Bristol Rovers was followed by a double in defeat at Shrewsbury Town and another in the following league game against Exeter.
Reaching 10 goals in 24 games puts him in very good company during the post-Ricketts era.
After the one-time England international reached 10 goals in 15 and 16 games, respectively, only Anelka has done it quicker (19 games), although Eoin Doyle also managed to get into double figures by his 24th appearance of the League Two promotion season.
Wanderers were, of course, playing top flight football for more than a decade, and their decline thereafter has been well-documented, all of which could explain why no player has exactly ‘caught fire’ in the prevailing decades.
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Pre-Ricketts, it will come as no surprise to Bolton supporters that the race to 10 goals was completed faster by some of the club’s striking greats.
Nat Lofthouse scored his first 10 goals for Wanderers in just 10 games during 1940, and John Byrom would match that achievement nearly 30 years later.
James Cassidy was the first player to manage 10 goals in under a dozen games, way back in 1891/92, and his benchmark has also been equalled by legends like Wyn Davies (1964/65), Frank Worthington (1978/79), Tony Caldwell (1983/84), John McGinlay (1993/94) and Nathan Blake (1996/97).
Crucially, many of those players went on to score the ‘second’ 10 goals, and in some cases even a third. But Evatt will be looking towards Charles to push on and show that his recent spate of scoring can be sustainable in the same way he did at Stanley.
Wanderers have managed to find goals from elsewhere, with last season’s top scorer Dapo Afolayan now on six – and showing signs that he is returning to his best form – and the outstanding Liverpool loanee Conor Bradley also moving on to half a dozen at the weekend.
Jon Dadi Bodvarsson has also quietly amassed six goals this season despite having a few injury issues to deal with along the way, and Evatt will hope that he can recover sufficiently after an operation to mend a broken nose to feature in his squad against Derby County on December 27.
Evatt revealed back in September that he had been offered several Premier League and Championship attackers on loan – or permanently – but had declined to add any new names to his squad for fear of upsetting the balance. During some of the skinnier goalscoring spells, the logic of that decision has definitely been questioned.
The January window is now less than a fortnight away and the club once again finds itself being linked with a striker, albeit one already familiar with the club.
Danny Ward is now 32 but at the turn of his twenties was sold by then-Premier League Wanderers to Huddersfield Town for £1million.
He had made only a small handful of games under Owen Coyle, who despite rating Ward felt the money on offer could be better used elsewhere.
Over the past decade Ward has scored plenty of goals at Championship level and even helped Cardiff City into the Premier League in 2018.
It has been reported that Bolton could pay a small fee to bring him back to the club next month, rather than wait until the summer to try and sign him on a free transfer.
An upturn in form for both Charles and Afolayan has come along at a good time for Wanderers, who still have some tricky games to negotiate in late December and early January before any sort of transfer business is likely.
If the second half of the season can be as successful for Evatt as it has over the last two years, then there may be a few more additions to the ‘double figures club’ by close of play. Who knows, perhaps we could even close the post-Ricketts chapter altogether with another 20-goal man?
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
At times it might not have felt like a successful season in front of goal for Dion Charles but as we approach the halfway stage, he might do well to count his blessings.
The Wanderers striker scored his 10th goal of the season against Exeter City on Saturday, becoming the first player to get into double figures for the club this side of Christmas since the great Nicolas Anelka 15 years ago.
Prolific goalscorers have hardly been prevalent at Bolton over the past two decades but in reaching the milestone in 24 appearances, there is every reason to hope the 27-year-old will be the man to finally puncture the 20-goal mark by May.
After Eoin Doyle’s near miss with 19 in 2020/21, Michael Ricketts continues to stand as the last player to top 20, when he helped to fire Sam Allardyce’s side into the Premier League in 2000/01.
Three players got into double figures that season – including defender Gudni Bergsson – and since then there have been 20 other occasions, including one from Ricketts himself the following year.
There are some famous names on the list, from Kevin Davies to Youri Djorkaeff, Kevin Nolan to Stelios Giannakopoulos, but nobody has managed to match Ricketts for total, or indeed sheer density of goals since the turn of the millennium.
Charles has already scored 20 in a single campaign for Accrington Stanley at League One level. And even in his first 12 months at Wanderers it has become clear that confidence is a major part of his game.
After a purple patch of six goals in eight games at the start of his Bolton career he went 14 games for club and country without hitting the back of the net. The drought was noticed – but the Whites’ fine form in the latter stages of last season ensured he got some leeway from the general public.
Two goals against Fleetwood Town on the last day ended the barren streak and gave everyone reason for optimism in the future. Since August Charles has kept the tally ticking over – albeit three of his goals have come in the cup competitions – but he has found his strike rate criticised, and manager Ian Evatt has been forced to defend him under claims that his side do not have enough firepower to sustain a promotion challenge.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Evatt has maintained for some time that a change of luck was on the cards, not only for Charles but for the whole of his front line.
It has become a well-worn footballing cliché when a manager insists he would be more worried about the form of a misfiring striker if he “wasn’t getting the chances” and in the immortal words of Billy Shankly, then describing Liverpool’s Roger Hunt: “Yes, he misses a few, but he gets in the right place to miss them.”
These days there is a way of measuring the quality of chances that a team creates, although the xG (expected goals) metric often divides opinion among fans as to its effectiveness.
Evatt is unquestionably a subscriber to such data, and according to leading website The Analyst, Wanderers remain one of only three teams in League One (the others being Port Vale and Morecambe) whose overall xG exceeds the number of goals they have scored.
In simple terms, Bolton should be scoring more goals because they are creating better chances. It all boils down to probability.
Charles has seen his fortunes improve. A late equaliser against Bristol Rovers was followed by a double in defeat at Shrewsbury Town and another in the following league game against Exeter.
Reaching 10 goals in 24 games puts him in very good company during the post-Ricketts era.
After the one-time England international reached 10 goals in 15 and 16 games, respectively, only Anelka has done it quicker (19 games), although Eoin Doyle also managed to get into double figures by his 24th appearance of the League Two promotion season.
Wanderers were, of course, playing top flight football for more than a decade, and their decline thereafter has been well-documented, all of which could explain why no player has exactly ‘caught fire’ in the prevailing decades.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Pre-Ricketts, it will come as no surprise to Bolton supporters that the race to 10 goals was completed faster by some of the club’s striking greats.
Nat Lofthouse scored his first 10 goals for Wanderers in just 10 games during 1940, and John Byrom would match that achievement nearly 30 years later.
James Cassidy was the first player to manage 10 goals in under a dozen games, way back in 1891/92, and his benchmark has also been equalled by legends like Wyn Davies (1964/65), Frank Worthington (1978/79), Tony Caldwell (1983/84), John McGinlay (1993/94) and Nathan Blake (1996/97).
Crucially, many of those players went on to score the ‘second’ 10 goals, and in some cases even a third. But Evatt will be looking towards Charles to push on and show that his recent spate of scoring can be sustainable in the same way he did at Stanley.
Wanderers have managed to find goals from elsewhere, with last season’s top scorer Dapo Afolayan now on six – and showing signs that he is returning to his best form – and the outstanding Liverpool loanee Conor Bradley also moving on to half a dozen at the weekend.
Jon Dadi Bodvarsson has also quietly amassed six goals this season despite having a few injury issues to deal with along the way, and Evatt will hope that he can recover sufficiently after an operation to mend a broken nose to feature in his squad against Derby County on December 27.
Evatt revealed back in September that he had been offered several Premier League and Championship attackers on loan – or permanently – but had declined to add any new names to his squad for fear of upsetting the balance. During some of the skinnier goalscoring spells, the logic of that decision has definitely been questioned.
The January window is now less than a fortnight away and the club once again finds itself being linked with a striker, albeit one already familiar with the club.
Danny Ward is now 32 but at the turn of his twenties was sold by then-Premier League Wanderers to Huddersfield Town for £1million.
He had made only a small handful of games under Owen Coyle, who despite rating Ward felt the money on offer could be better used elsewhere.
Over the past decade Ward has scored plenty of goals at Championship level and even helped Cardiff City into the Premier League in 2018.
It has been reported that Bolton could pay a small fee to bring him back to the club next month, rather than wait until the summer to try and sign him on a free transfer.
An upturn in form for both Charles and Afolayan has come along at a good time for Wanderers, who still have some tricky games to negotiate in late December and early January before any sort of transfer business is likely.
If the second half of the season can be as successful for Evatt as it has over the last two years, then there may be a few more additions to the ‘double figures club’ by close of play. Who knows, perhaps we could even close the post-Ricketts chapter altogether with another 20-goal man?
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