Best Of
Re: Aaron Morley
That’s an outstanding article for a local reporter. Thoroughly well researched and equally well written to boot.
Re: Where would you like us to be in the future?
Don't get me wrong, success would be grand. I would be quite happy to be a L1/Champo yoyo club, but the way most clubs treat their fans once they get to the promised land can be truly appalling. Money seems to be plentiful and yet the top clubs often rinse their supporters, safe in the knowledge someone else will buy any exorbitantly priced STs abandoned by the faithful.
Not to mention VAR.
Re: Where would you like us to be in the future?
Sustainable football at the highest level we can has been my answer for about twenty five years. But I’d really like to have a good crack at the Championship.
floyd
Re: Where would you like us to be in the future?
To see the ground full watching entertaining football which gets talked about on Match of the Day by Shearer and Richards to a backdrop of Autumn beach woods as they ride high above Hillbottom on the now iconic Wycombe chairlift.
Re: Rumour Mill
Yes, I sometimes watch him and then read the hype on here and do wonder if I'm missing something. Very promising and developing fast, but doesn't feel Nathan Tyson very obvious huge star material just yet
Malone
Re: Rumour Mill
You'd be surprised if most of the premier league aren't interested?
Seems a little bit of a stretch. As much as I'd be delighted if someone wades in with a massive multi million offer.
Malone
Re: Aaron Morley
Bringing it back on topic, here's the latest from Bolton Wanderers. Author: Marc Iles (The Bolton News)
“HEY, Aaron Morley (oooh-aah), we want to know (oh) how you scored that goal!”
It was a chant we have all heard a hundred times before at Bolton, aimed towards a player who has always retained his popularity on the terraces even if his fortunes on the pitch were changeable.
Only on Friday night, it was different. Morley was kitted out in Wycombe’s tracksuit and though he wasn’t able to play against Wanderers, he was very much in the opposition camp.
Supporters have made their preference known as Ian Evatt weighs up whether to bring Morley back from Adams Park in January, a decision which has taken on more significance than the manager could ever have thought possible when he sanctioned the move back in August.
Under Matt Bloomfield Wycombe have been the surprise package in League One over the first half of the season, tweaking the uncompromising, physical, high-energy approach they honed under his predecessor, Gareth Ainsworth, and turning in a genuinely impressive string of results to take them top of the table.
Morley has been very much central to that success, starting 16 games and already racking up more time on the pitch than he did in the entire of 2023/24 with Bolton.
For some, bringing him back next month is a straightforward choice. Not only does it mean an in-form midfielder is available for selection but is also gives Evatt a chance to throw a stick in the spokes of the Chairboys’ promotion efforts too.
Morley’s presence has allowed Josh Scowen, previously known as more of a defensive type, to push on as a number eight. And given licence to sit back and use his range of passing – never in doubt at Bolton, even in the toughest of times – Morley has been able to supply plenty of ammunition to Wycombe’s heavy-duty attack.
This season he has provided four direct assists, matching what he did at Wanderers last term, and he is also averaging 51 touches of the ball per game – almost double what he did over the previous year (26.7 per game) and back towards his best levels with the Whites from 2022/23 (56.9).
At Wycombe he has been installed as the sole playmaker, the quarterback tasked with launching the ball towards a notoriously aggressive attack. With Bolton, Morley did not have the same weight of solo responsibility with the likes of Josh Sheehan competing for the same sort of space and ball-carriers like Kyle Dempsey and Paris Maghoma driving the team forward in a different way.
Morley has been able to use his longer-range passing at Wycombe in a way that, perhaps, does not suit Wanderers’ smaller and more mobile attack. Since moving to Adams Park the number of long balls he has hit has doubled, and their accuracy improved from 33 per cent to 54 per cent.
The 24-year-old started only 10 league games in 23/24 but did boast a decent record, finishing up on the losing side on just two of those occasions, against Wigan Athletic and Bristol Rovers.
Evatt had hinted that Morley’s work out of possession had been one of the main reasons he did not start more games. Again, that area seems to have improved with regular football in the last few months.
Morley has made 4.7 ball recoveries per game this season, up from 2.2 last year, and the number of successful ground duels has also improved from 42 to 55 per cent, with more than twice the number of instances.
In short, Morley is returning numbers comparable, if not better than his best campaign at Bolton two years ago when he helped Evatt’s side reach the play-off semi-finals and win the Papa Johns Trophy. He had suffered more than most when the midfield was reshaped the following summer with Maghoma quickly becoming an influential presence and George Thomason also leading the way in terms of physical returns.
Wanderers were asking more of their midfield men last season and there was a big question mark over whether Morley – also a new father, which is a factor often overlooked – could quite be relied upon in the same way.
Post play-off final, Evatt pushed the redevelopment further, bringing in a 3-4-3 formation which was not without its teething troubles. Even more was being asked from the central midfielders, and that led to the decision to let Morley – still with a couple of years left on his contract – move out elsewhere to find regular football and to regain his mojo.
Early season failures led to Bolton returning to their 3-5-2 roots, and they have largely remained faithful to that shape ever since, meaning Morley would at least be returning to a formation he knows well.
The environment to which he would return is quite different to Buckinghamshire, where the average crowds of just over 5,000 have been thrilled by the team’s progress this season and remain hugely behind the team and the manager. Bolton and Evatt’s relationship with a much larger fanbase has been changeable and the levels of expectation between the two sets of fans is quite different.
Wanderers have been short on central midfield options at times over the last few months – Scott Arfield’s move from MLS yet to bear fruit, Klaidi Lolos missing the first couple of months through injury and both Sheehan and Thomason experiencing issues on the fitness front too.
Even if Morley is recalled, it would not be a surprise to see Evatt bring in another player in the Dempsey-Maghoma mould to give him better options. And in the manager’s own words, he is not looking to recruit squad depth next month, only guaranteed starters.
Thanks to a brief outing against Mansfield earlier in the season, Wycombe are the only other club Morley can play for in the second half of the season. Local sources suggest the club’s wealthy Kazakhstan owner could provide serious funds to galvanise the squad after such a strong start but neither Bloomfield nor Evatt has hinted at any discussion about a permanent move.
If Wanderers bring Morley back they potentially weaken a team they see as a promotion rival and reunite with a player they know to be a match-winner on his best days.
But if Evatt brings back a player who has been playing regular football and enjoying himself away from the pressure cooker atmosphere of the Toughsheet and fails to find a place for him, then nobody really wins.
Fans would love to be serenading the midfielder after another trademark free-kick or pivotal penalty but as with anything at Wanderers these days, there are no guarantees.
