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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
John McDougall

How Bolton Wanderers have evolved since Eoin Doyle's departure as goalscoring challenge set

Ian Evatt believes Bolton Wanderers have improved in terms of sharing the goals around the team since Eoin Doyle's departure but wants more to chip in to help improve this evening further next season.

Wanderers have finished the League One season in ninth place and secured a top 10 finish following their promotion out of League Two last season.

Bolton ended this campaign with Dapo Afolayan being the club's top scorer with 14 goals, while Amadou Bakayoko was only one behind on 13.

READ MORE: Bolton Wanderers confirm eight players released & Xavier Amaechi decision made

Two strikers signed in January in the form of Dion Charles and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson contributed eight and seven goals respectively as the club's forward line shared the goals around.

Last season, Doyle scored 19 goals for Wanderers as the club was promoted out of League Two and was the club's top scorer by 11 strikes.

The Irishman netted eight more goals this season before making a move in the January transfer window back home to Dublin to play for St Patrick's Athletic.

With the current group of Wanderers forwards not having been together for very long given Charles and Bodvarsson only arrived in January and Bakayoko's limited time on the pitch in the first half of the campaign due to injury, Evatt pinpointed the group sharing the goals around as a key improvement this campaign and not relying on one player on that front.

And the Wanderers boss wants more from the rest of the team moving forwards to help make his side an even more threatening outfit next season.

He said: “We have only had this group since January and one of the key parts of our improvement this season has been that we are not just reliant on one person scoring lots of goals.

“Eoin Doyle did that for us last season and we didn’t share it enough. But now we have a group who can all offer goals at different times.

“When they scored in the second half I was calm, for one, and sat down. I turned to Peter Atherton and said ‘I’m not worried, we always score late’.

“We have a belief and that comes from scoring goals and having people on the pitch who can make things happen.

“The forward group is strong but we maybe need to share goals around the team more – I am not mentioning names, Rico – but they are all things to make us even better.”

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