Bolton Wanderers chairman Ken Anderson has told the official club website that they missed out on striker targets as other clubs beat them by paying ‘inflated transfer fees and salaries’. The Bolton News claims they were keen on signing Joe Garner from Ipswich Town, who has since ended up at Wigan Athletic.
Antonee Robinson and Callum Connelly were two other targets that Bolton had in this window, and they too have ended up moving to rivals Wigan. Garner has made the move in a £1.25million deal, which has seen Ipswich practically double the amount that paid for the club when signing him up from Rangers.
Bolton were looking to be active on this deadline day, but failed to add any new recruits. Whilst this will disappoint manager Phil Parkinson, he perhaps can understand it given the circumstances. Anderson states that the club are not prepared to take certain risks that they have taken in the past, which backfired badly,
“I have always maintained we shall never enter into a bidding war for a player whose price escalates beyond our own valuation.
“Unfortunately, this has meant that we missed out on our striker targets ahead of Thursday’s deadline insofar as two have signed elsewhere and one has not moved. Obviously, this is very disappointing but, under my watch, this club shall never repeat the mistakes of the past and we will continue to operate on a commercial and financially prudent basis.”
Anderson also pointed out that ten new faces have made the move to Bolton in this window.
