Opinion: The Necessary Evil of Releasing Will Jaaskelainen

So the retained list told us in reality very little about who will stay and go in the run up to next season. Of the few players let go Will Jaaskelainen was possibly the biggest surprise. He is a promising young player and one who I guess I assumed the club would keep on.

But when you look a little closer at the goalkeeping department it becomes very clear why young Jaaskelainen was allowed to leave.

Bolton Wanderers have on their books Ben Alnwick, Mark Howard, Ben Amos and Jake Turner.

In Amos we have a keeper who will likely be hard to shift this summer as Cardiff City seemed to see the error they had made snapping him up. He alone takes up a large proportion of our playing budget, let alone what we would ideally earmark for goalkeepers. That in its own right will make it hard to shift the man, his errant form will make it even harder.

Alnwick and Howard both proved themselves to be decent League One goalkeepers last season. Do they have what it takes to step up to the Championship? Only time would tell. But with Amos likely on our books next season we will want to move one on. Its likely this could be done fairly easily to a League One side.

But moving on one of those guys on still leaves Turner. As and England youth international he is also a promising player and worth keeping on at the club. With so many senior obstacles in the way of one young keeper it is no surprise that the other was let go.

So as nice as it would have been to see young Will given a chance to inherit Jussi’s crown the reality is we only needed one young keeper going forward. In an ideal world we would have the budget and squad space to keep them both. But obviously the reality in both departments, as long as this pesky transfer embargo remains, is another matter entirely. Tough choices have to be made in these circumstances and unfortunately this is one of those.

The decision to keep the sought after England youth international instead makes perfect sense. Lets just hope that he is given the chance to break through when ready, and doesn’t get snapped up by a bigger fish before he gets the chance.

All that remains is to say good luck to the young Jaaskelainen on what will hopefully be a great career.