He's the Hero Bolton Deserves, But Not the One it Needs Right Now

In an ideal world we would add Nolan who would give competition to Zach Clough and Stephen Dobbie. He would also maybe add competition for target man with Gary Madine and Emile Heskey. We would then also bring in a new striker, maybe James Wilson, to add more goal threat up top.

But this is not an ideal world and in all likelihood, if we are lucky, it is one or the other. If we are less lucky it will be neither which I would imagine we all can agree would be the worse outcome here (neither would mean no other striker other than Wilson too).

Nolan has undoubted qualities, which are picked up on in DowntheMannyRd's article (for other views on Nolan see eddieskelly's article and the comments for both!). I agree with everything said in DowntheMannyRd's article in respect to what Nolan could bring into the team. As any Bolton fan would I think we deserve to have a player offering those qualities in our squad. And I think I am right in saying that most Bolton fans see that Nolan can bring some of those qualities (do correct me in the comments).

There are some legitimate concerns. For example Chris not wanting Nolan on the basis he could only replace Clough in the team. This makes perfect sense and with our limited resources I think Lennon would have to be sure Nolan can be used as a striker if he is to bring him in. And having read Murbroski's comments I agree this probably means as a target man. If not then it would be a miss allocation of resources as Clough is our best player and we have Dobbie as back up for him.

This is really where the title, borrowed from Christopher Nolan's Batman, comes into play. In an ideal world we would add Nolan to the squad for what he can bring to it. But as I said at the start this is not an ideal world and a striker should be the number one priority. It may be pushing it a bit to claim that Nolan would be a returning hero. But I think the sentiment of the quote fits in that we deserve a player who can offer what he can, but he is just not the player we need right now.

But if there is no striker good enough available then we could do far worse than Kevin Nolan!