Debut Review: Jose Manuel Casado

Jose Manuel Casado made his long awaited competitive Bolton Wanderers debut against Burnley in the place of the injured Dean Moxey.

The Spanish left back began his career in Catalonia with Barcelona playing nearly 60 times for their C team. The Barca C team has since folded, but in Casado’s day it was playing in the Tercera Division where it spent much to its history.

After his time within Barca’s system he moved to Sevilla, where he had been as a youth player prior to joining Barca. He began in their B team making 68 appearances and scoring two of his three senior goals. He did move up to the full team, but only managed two appearances and was sent out on loan twice. Both of these loan spells ended in relegation from La Liga first with Recreativo and then with Xerez.

Casado was with Sevilla B when they won promotion to the Segunda Division but will have also played with them in Segunda Division B which is a league they are far more accustomed to being in. After his time at Sevilla he moved onto Rayo Vallecano where he made 97 appearances and scored his last goal to date. While at Rayo he achieved promotion to La Liga, making him yet another member of our squad to have achieved a high level promotion in his career, as they ended an 8 year absence from the Spanish top flight.

After Rayo came an unsuccessful spell at Malaga where he only managed two appearances. Then was Almeria where he only achieved 8 appearances as the club was relegated from the top flight of Spanish football. On leaving Almeria he became a free agent and later signed for Bolton in the wake of Tim Ream’s exit.

All of the above means, obviously, that this is Casado’s first experience of football outside of his native Spain. A need to adapt to the English game was picked up on during his debut against Burnley which it is fair to say does not appear to have been much of a success.

This means that with Casado it may be a case of hoping that Moxey returns to injury soon and stays fit so that he has more time to adapt his game before he is called on again. Having said that it is of course great to have two senior left backs in the squad!

Casado has only had one major injury ruling him out for about six months. For a Bolton player that is quite something, and hopefully at the age of 28 we have signed a player in his prime who can build upon experience in Spain’s top leagues with Bolton Wanderers. Rather than spending all his time in the treatment room.