After spending February until the end of May on loan at Bolton Wanderers last season, playing 21 league games and helping the Trotters to secure automatic promotion from EFL League Two to EFL League One via a third-place finish, Dapo Afolayan (182cm/6’0”, 73kg/160.9lbs) moved to the Macron Stadium on a free transfer this past summer, committing his future to Ian Evatt’s side permanently in the process.
Afolayan joined Bolton from EPL regulars West Ham United, with the 24-year-old having initially moved to East London from Solihull Moors back in January 2018. Despite ultimately making just one appearance for West Ham’s senior squad before departing this past summer, the Bolton attacker has put up some pretty impressive goalscoring numbers wherever he’s been throughout his career. In his final season with Solihull Moors, 2017/18, Afolayan scored 11 goals in 30 National League appearances, while he managed nine goals and five assists in a total of 32 Premier League 2 appearances for West Ham’s U23s, in total. The London-born attacker even managed to score in his only game for the Irons’ first team when he was given his debut by former Manchester United and Everton boss David Moyes back in January before his departure.
While he scored just once in his 21 league appearances for the Trotters last term, Afolayan has gotten off to an impressive start in front of goal this season, bagging four in his first seven League One games of the 2021/22 campaign.
In this tactical analysis and scout report focusing on the Englishman, we’ll provide analysis of some key talking points, strengths and weaknesses of the player’s game. Looking beyond just on-the-surface goal contributions, we’ll take a deep dive into Afolayan’s playing style to paint the full picture of what makes the ex-Irons attacker one of League One’s most exciting talents. This scout report reveals why Bolton manager Ian Evatt has openly declared that he believes Afolayan has “got a big future”, sharing all you need to know about this talent and his role in Bolton’s tactics.
Movement
Throughout most of his career thus far, Afolayan has primarily played as a centre-forward. However, during his time at Bolton both this season and last, the right-footed attacker has mainly been utilised at left-wing in Bolton’s typical 4-2-3-1 shape. The attacker tends to occupy the left half-space more than the wide area, especially when positioned further up the pitch, closer to the opposition goal. When positioned deeper, during an earlier phase of the attack, you’ll also commonly find Afolayan in the half-space channel quite a lot but he’ll be found wider during earlier phases more than in later phases too.
The Bolton man tends to be very heavily involved for his side in possession. He’s got a lot of influence over his team’s attack, which is evident in the fact that last season, he completed the second-most successful attacking actions per 90 (8.47) of any left-winger in League Two to have played at least 800 minutes of football. Meanwhile, this season, Afolayan has completed the third-most successful attacking actions per 90 (8.85) of any left-winger in League One.
Intelligent positioning and movement play an important role in Afolayan’s heavy influence over his team’s attack. We see the first example of Afolayan’s positioning and movement in figure 1, where the 24-year-old is found in the right half-space while Bolton are in the ball progression phase. Just before this image, the opposition right-back marking Afolayan was touch tight to the Bolton man. However, after assessing the situation and seeing this passing lane open up, Afolayan takes the opportunity to link up with his teammate on the ball, dropping deeper, coming towards the ball-carrier and receiving this pass to feet.
His movement away from the defender creates some space for himself to receive the ball more comfortably and begin turning, as we see in figure 2. As play moves on from here, Afolayan ends up back in the right half-space, essentially in his starting position, only this time, he’s in possession and he’s running towards the opposition goal instead of away from it with runners ahead of him including the Bolton left-back who attacked the space on the wing which Afolayan initially created when he shifted into the half-space and dragged the full-back with him.
