George Johnston - Latic Turned Trotter
George Johnston has had a very interesting professional career, despite only being 24 (25 very soon, happy birthday). The Scotsman began his career in the youth setup of Liverpool, playing for the under 18s and under 19s - George left the club in 19/20 for Feyenoord for a fee of £250k. Moving abroad so young is obviously a massive step and shows great attitude and character, he did not make a first team appearance during this season but did start 1 game and make 3 total appearances in the 2020/21 season before being loaned out to Wigan Athletic. He joined Wigan in January and made 19 starting appearances and came off the bench 3 times, he played a key part in keeping Wigan up this season and his performances were recognised. On the 1st of July 2021, Johnston left Feyenoord and joined Bolton Wanderers on a free transfer - in August 2023, despite picking up a serious injury, he was rewarded with a new deal until 2026.
Johnston is a left footed centre back and plays his best football in a back 3, as he does for Evatt's Bolton side. This allows him to push on and show his creative qualities, he will often play a 1-2 with the wing back and then make an under or overlapping run. All of the best outside centre backs do this and this is how Johnston has registered his assists. An underlap can create an overload because the winger won't want to track him all the way and he has the understanding of when to make the run and play the pass. In a game vs Exeter last season, he made an underlap and assisted a goal for Dion Charles.
Johnston plays the pass and makes the run and the winger does not track him, players who do the same when playing in a back three are Luke Shaw and Kyle Walker.
A great way to analyse a player is to look into their statistics from an entire season, so with Johnston I have looked at his statistics from last season and found some very interesting points. The first is how many games he played and how many of those that he started: Johnston played 36 league games for Bolton last season, as well as 7 in different cup competitions, out of the 43 games he played last season, he started 40 - this shows that when he is fit and available, he is playing. Another interesting stat is the amount of key passes per game 0.4 is almost unheard of for a centre back - to highlight how impressive this is, John Stones (who steps into midfield for the best team in the world) only plays 0.3 key passes per game. Also, he kept 16 clean sheets in the league last season - as an outside centre back, he will be tasked with marking the wingers a lot and this is no easy task and shows his defensive intelligence. The final stat I'll focus in on is his interceptions per game, for a centre back a high number of interceptions is rare but Johnston averages 1.6 interceptions per game, a truly excellent stat. In comparison, Ben Davies of Tottenham only averaged 0.6 interceptions per game in the same position, last season.
Of course Johnston will miss the majority, if not all, of the 23/24 season but Evatt has still offered him a new contract, this shows how important he is for Evatt's side and he is willing to take him to the Championship, even if he doesn't play in the promotion season. Johnston is still young and has great potential so hopefully this injury doesn't hamper his career.
If you have any questions comment on the original piece here.