Bolton Wanderers can add to Dion Charles, Huddersfield Town woe | OneFootball

After joining Huddersfield from Bolton in January, things have not gone well for Dion Charles and now his former club are surging up the table.

In the space of a week in January, Bolton Wanderers experienced some significant changes with the sale of their then-top scorer, Dion Charles, to Huddersfield Town, followed by the departure of manager Ian Evatt the following week.

Charles had been with Wanderers for three years and had become the first player to score 50 goals for the club since Kevin Nolan, the first to hit 20 in a season since Michael Ricketts and the first to achieve that feat in back-to-back seasons since John McGinlay.

Evatt, on the other hand, had been one of the longest-serving managers in the EFL with his departure, which he now suggests was more down to him, ending a four-and-a-half-year stint in charge at the Toughsheet Community Stadium.

As we head into spring and edge towards the ‘run in’ in the EFL, things have dramatically changed for both Bolton and Charles’ new club Huddersfield in that time with Wanderers going from floundering in the middle of the League One table to legitimate play-off contenders, whilst Huddersfield begin to look over their shoulder, clinging on to a top six spot after previously expecting to sustain a challenge for the top two and the automatic promotion spots.

Making do without Charles, but struggling with Charles

It was confirmed this week that Victor Adeboyejo will miss the rest of this season and a part of next season due to requiring reconstruction surgery on an ACL, whilst winter transfer window signing Kion Etete has made one appearance for the club due to injury.

That means Bolton have, albeit potentially to their benefit and something that may have happened anyway with Steven Schumacher’s management, had to make John McAtee into the out-and-out striker that he hadn’t been in the first few months of his time at Bolton, as well as Klaidi Lolos and, to an extent, Aaron Collins, albeit the Welshman remains a more enigmatic figure in terms of his position on the pitch.

Despite the sale of Charles and those personnel issues up-front, Wanderers have been able to maintain a good scoring rate and their comfortable 3-1 defeat of Birmingham City the other day means that only Wycombe Wanderers have scored more than them in League One, with Bolton scoring three or more in three of their last five games in the third-tier.

They have won six of their eight games since the departure of Evatt and collecting four points from their two recent games against Wrexham and Birmingham would be results that many would have suggested wouldn’t have been possible before the arrival of Schumacher.

Huddersfield Town, on the other hand, spent big money on both Charles and Luton Town striker Joe Taylor to try and propel themselves into automatic promotion contention but their 1-0 loss at home to Wrexham on Tuesday made it three defeats in four matches for the Terriers and the pressure is mounting on manager Michael Duff.

Charles, the Northern Ireland international, is yet to break his duck for Huddersfield after ten appearances and a miss after getting sent through on goal against Wrexham, when the game was locked at 0-0, has added to his woes.

Duff on Charles' missed chance post-Wrexham.

Bolton eyeing up Huddersfield and above

Bolton have closed the gap on the play-off places to such an extent that some of the more optimistic supporters are looking at being ten points off Wycombe in second as a feasible target.

The more immediate and realistic aspiration, though, remains on the top six with Wanderers now just a point behind Huddersfield in the table, sitting seventh and with a game-in-hand on the sixth-placed Terriers.

There was something already satisfying to Bolton fans when, in the first game of the post-Evatt era and under the interim management of boyhood supporter Julian Darby, they went across to Yorkshire and defeated Huddersfield by a goal to nil in what was Dion Charles’ home debut.

It would be even more of some sort of poetic justice for Bolton fans if, after selling their top scorer and not really replacing him in a tumultuous and topsy-turvy month during an underwhelming campaign, they were to eventually get themselves back into the top six at the expense of Charles and his new club, amid Charles’ own struggles on the pitch.

With the two sides facing away trips this weekend to 21st and 20th in the League One table respectively, as Bolton head to Burton Albion and Huddersfield face Bristol Rovers, the battle is very much on and the underlying narrative brought about by the January transfer window remains an intriguing one.