Bolton Wanderers Josh Dacres-Cogley the smartest summer buy?

Bolton’s player of the year had hit the right note on and off the pitch, heading back to Liverpool to resume a Premier League career with the best wishes of everyone who had watched him blossom in League One.

He left behind a proverbial big pair of boots to fill. And when Ian Evatt looked towards Tranmere Rovers for his next right-sided wing-back, it was tempting to wonder if Josh Dacres-Cogley was only being lined up to be a part of an ensemble defensive cast.

The former Birmingham City man had experience of Championship football and had been given rave reviews in Birkenhead, where he had barely missed a game in the last two seasons. Nevertheless, some eyebrows were raised when Bolton went into the new campaign with Dacres-Cogley as their only ‘specialist’ in the position.

Wanderers had pulled out of negotiations to sign Bristol City’s Kane Wilson in the summer with concerns over his injury record leaving the club unwilling to match the players’ financial demands. The stall in talks left the path clear for Derby County to offer him what Evatt and Co were unprepared to do.

The proximity between that collapsed transfer and the one to sign Dacres-Cogley brought about inevitable debate over which club had done the better business. One wonders, given the early season statistics, whether any opinions have changed?

Wilson has made four appearances for Derby but was ruled out for two months with a tendon problem in his hamstring after coming on for Joe Ward in a 2-1 home defeat against Oxford United.

Free agent Dacres-Cogley, meanwhile, has started eight of Bolton’s nine games in all competitions, coming on as a substitute in the 3-1 home defeat to Middlesbrough in the Carabao Cup.

Not only has the Birmingham-born defender matched the robustness Bradley showed last term but he has also matched his influence in an attacking sense. No other player in League One has supplied the ammunition for more clear-cut chances, his seven putting him ahead of Wigan’s Tom Pearce and Peterborough United’s Harrison Burrows.

Stats graphic for Josh Dacres-Cogley (Image: NQNW)

Dacres-Cogley’s work on the right wing has led to 16 shots at goal for Bolton, a total bettered only by his team-mate Randell Williams and Derby’s playmaker Conor Hourihane. Whether you can include the cross against Derby which ended up in the back of the net is perhaps a matter for the Dubious Goals Panel.

Whereas Wanderers struggled to balance out their wing-back work last season, with Bradley taking up most of the slack, the tandem threat of Dacres-Cogley and Williams has proven effective over the first six games.

Bolton rely heavily on their ability to keep possession and the 27-year-old has slotted in seamlessly on that front too.

While Josh Sheehan is one of just two players in League One with a pass accuracy of more than 92 per cent – Leyton Orient’s George Moncur being the other – the Whites’ defensive unit has also wasted little of the ball in the opening month.

Dacres-Cogley, Gethin Jones and Ricardo Santos are all within the top 50 players in the division for pass accuracy, along with midfielders Sheehan, George Thomason, Carlos Mendes Gomes and Kyle Dempsey and striker Dan Nlundulu.

But more impressively, no other player in League One has managed more accurate passes in the final third than Dacres-Cogley, who along with Charlton’s George Dobson and Leyton Orient’s Idris El-Mizouni have mustered 99 so far.

He averages 48.2 passes per game, which puts him among the top 50 busiest players in all areas of the pitch. Team-mate Jack Iredale is the division’s fourth most prolific passer of the ball with 80.2 per game. Jones (76.2) and Santos (72.8) also fall within the top 10.

Last season at Tranmere Dacres-Cogley returned respectable numbers playing in an orthodox full-back position, finishing the season with four assists and 11th for clear-cut chances created. He created 50 shooting opportunities in all for Rovers, putting him 24th among his peers.

Though offered a chance to stay on Merseyside, Dacres-Cogley wanted to operate at a higher level once again so ran his contract down at Prenton Park. Wanderers spotted the potential for a bargain – and his stats since starting the season suggest that they found one.

Moreover, the issue of robustness the club clearly had in the abandoned Wilson deal was not a factor with Dacres-Cogley, who had played 48 and 52 games respectively in the last two seasons for Tranmere.

While concerns over the lack of direct cover have been voiced, the emergence of Luke Matheson from the B Team may calm some of the nerves. Evatt – whose aim in the summer was to make his squad more ‘multi-functional’ – also pointed out that Gethin Jones and Randell Williams are equally adept as a right wing-back if needed.

Bradley is yet to find out what his future holds at Liverpool, having picked up a back injury in pre-season which has kept him out of action for club and country so far. But his replacement is already looking like one of this summer’s smartest, and perhaps most surprising, bits of business.