Conor Bradley (on loan at Bolton Wanderers) - Season Analysis

Is he ready to step up and challenge Alexander-Arnold?

Stats collected on 11th April, written on 12th April.

After a few weeks of scout reports on potential transfer targets (all of which you can go through here), let’s have a look at one of our young players who is currently on a season-long loan at League One club Bolton Wanderers - Conor Bradley.

Bradley, 19, was with the Liverpool youth sides since September 2019 before making a move to Bolton to play a season with the first-team and gain valuable experience. Safe to say, the Northern Ireland international has had a successful time there thus far. He has scored seven goals and assisted six in 46 appearances in all competitions, playing the majority of the games as a right wing-back.

Bolton are currently sixth in the table and have every chance of reaching the playoff stages. Bradley could play a big part for them in reaching there and potentially getting promoted to the Championship. 

To get to know more about the young Northern Irish star and his performances for the Trotters this season, let’s take a deep dive below.

C. Bradley - Introduction and Player Profile

Conor Bradley is an attack-minded right-back who can operate in any position on that side of the field. Although at Bolton he has looked comfortable playing as a wing-back, he has played as a fullback for the Liverpool youth sides and done well.

The 19-year-old possesses good pace and engine to make runs up and down the field on that right-hand side. He is a decent passer of the ball, can put good crosses in, does not mind joining attacks and likes to get tight on the opposition attackers when left alone in 1-v-1 situations in wide areas.

While 13 goal contributions in 46 appearances for Bolton isn’t bad, he made 19 G+A for various Liverpool sides in 68 appearances before the start of this season. We still remember his classy assist for Kaide Gordon against Shrewsbury in the FA Cup third round last year. 

To understand his style of play better, let’s have a look at his heatmap in the League One this season below - 

Although I do not have a touchmap of Bradley this season, the heatmap above gives us an idea of where he likes to operate as a wing-back. With Bolton second in the league having the highest average possession (55.7%) and third in touches in penalty box metric (18.53 per 90), the 19-year-old can have greater impact in the attacking half of the field [Possession and Touches data from Wyscout].

This is the average position of Bolton players during their 3-0 win over Portsmouth back in January. Bradley’s (no 21) average position being in the opposition half as expected. It’s just a small reference to how the youngster operates on his side of the field [average position map from Sofascore].