DOUGIE Freedman has vowed to move on quickly after missing out on his top striker target Lukas Jutkiewicz.
The Wanderers boss admitted despite his best efforts to get a deal done with Middlesbrough for the 25-year-old target man, the “timing” had prevented the club from rivalling Burnley for his signature.
Freedman also felt the lure of top-flight football was a major factor in Jutkiewicz pressing ahead with the transfer this week.
But instead of moping around – the Scot has called on fans to trust him as he makes his next moves in the transfer market.
“I like to think I have demonstrated my signings to the fans,” he told The Bolton News. “I’m frustrated like everyone else – as a coach I think I’m resurrecting too many careers with loans.
“But at the same time, I’m proud we coach that way at the club.
“I have always got a plan B – and we will move on very quickly.
“Timing isn’t always what you want it to be in football.
“People want players through the door right away and other managers might think otherwise.
“We were interested in Juke – but both financially, and in terms of balancing our squad, the timing has done us.”
Jutkiewicz completed his £1.5million move to Turf Moor yesterday afternoon, provoking a wave of disappointment among Wanderers fans who had been pinning their hopes on him becoming a Bolton player this summer.
But Freedman has wasted no time in planning his next move – and said he could have two or three new signings on board by the time the Championship season kicks-off on August 9 against Watford.
“We will move on, we will go again, and we’ll go and, hopefully, find someone who can have the same sort of impact as Lukas had for us last season,” he said.
“We are very proud to have resurrected his career, or at least that’s how I feel, because in the months leading up to him coming here he’d not been performing as he should. We got him going again.
“He was good for us, we were good for him.
“There was interest in trying to do it on a permanent, we worked on it through the summer, but in the end I think we lost out to top-flight football.
“I think Premier League football was a big lure.
“We were among a number of clubs – the last I was told was five – who wanted to do something.
“In the end the timing just didn’t sit right financially to put our hand in our pocket.
“But I’ve got another plan and by the time the start of the season comes along I’d like to have another two, possibly three in the building.”
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