YOU are never a better player than when you are out of the team, or so the well-worn football phrase goes.

And in Aaron Morley’s current case, your stock could not possibly be higher among Bolton Wanderers fans than when you are helping a League One rival to an excellent start to the campaign.

Shunted out to Wycombe on a season-long loan after an indifferent 12 months, the 24-year-old has found his niche at Adams Park, and is yet to finish on the losing side in any of the eight games he has started for his new club.

Though Ian Evatt insisted that Morley’s move to Wycombe was not the end of his career with Bolton, examples of senior players spending a whole season elsewhere and then knitting neatly back into the fabric are rare at this level.

Morley may still be comparatively young but the reason he pushed to find regular football elsewhere is that it simply hadn’t been on the table at the Toughsheet Stadium, and with a shift in formation over the summer, opportunities were arguably looking more scarce in the future.

The playmaker had started just two league games in 2024, one coincidentally coming in a 2-1 win against Wycombe in February. He had retained the affection of many Wanderers fans with a few decent cameos from the bench, a couple of late penalties, but was effectively viewed as relief cover for George Thomason or Josh Sheehan, which was not the position he wanted to be in.

Bolton’s development since his move to Wycombe in August has been suitably disrupted that the decision is now being retrospectively reviewed by many supporters.

The club do not have the option to recall him until January, that has been a rule in the Football League since 2016. And given his success in Buckinghamshire, one wonders if that would be his preferred course of action anyhow?

Evatt elected to switch formations in the summer post-Wembley, moving to a system where two central midfielders would be used behind three strikers. That played to the strengths of Thomason and also Jay Matete, who was brought in on loan from Sunderland for exactly that purpose.

Josh Sheehan did not look ideally suited to the job, his early form suffering as Wanderers’ results also stuttered, and Morley – who never truly gained the trust of his manager as a player who could operate to his liking out of possession - simply didn’t get a look in as the team tried to bed down a new system.

By the time Bolton were humbled 4-0 at home to Huddersfield Town last month, a result which prompted an angry backlash from the supporters, Evatt abandoned his plan and reverted back to the 3-5-2 system he had used the previous year.

It is important to reiterate that Morley had not been a regular part of the starting line-up, even in the tried-and-trusted formation, but given the club’s recent issues with form and fitness in the central midfield area the wistful glances towards a player performing well on loan are only to be expected.

Thomason is out until late November, Kyle Dempsey has reported a knee injury, Matete’s form has wobbled since the midfield shape changed and Scott Arfield has yet to hit his straps as a Bolton player since his move from MLS.

Evatt has used John McAtee as an auxiliary number eight and has yet to call properly on the services of another summer signing, Klaidi Lolos, who has been on the bench for the last few games since returning from an injury picked up on his debut at Leyton Orient.

Sheehan has returned to something of his old form since the system switch, although to operate at his best on the ball he does need physicality around him. For all Morley’s strengths as a dead ball specialist, a player of unique passing range and an eye for goal, he is not the man for that particular job.

Though Evatt has spoken about external “calls for change” triggering his tactical decisions over the summer, the reality is that his squad is currently shaped by his own hands. He believes there is enough versatility in the signings he brought to the club to be able to toggle between the two systems without trouble. But recent performances – though resolute at times – have not made a convincing case for his viewpoint.

It is senseless doing anything other than wishing Morley well, at least until January. The real challenge may be to get some consistency from the players who were brought in to replace him.