Bolton Wanderers v Barnsley FC: Spider sense helps Luca Connell get his career back on track

Two years ago, Barnsley’s classy midfielder played his part in late season as Queen's Park lifted the Scottish League Two title.

Rewind the clock 12 months – almost to the day – and the Liverpudlian was an integral cog in the Spiders' side who backed up with another promotion.

They were elevated into the Championship after winning the League One play-offs north of the border – beating Airdrieonians in a tense two-legged final.

Now, he is pitted into another end-of-season third-tier finale. The club where he started out his football dreams in Bolton Wanderers lie in wait and are blocking Barnsley's path to Wembley.

Connell burst onto the scene at Wanderers as a precocious 17-year-old in early 2019. By the spring, the once proud Lancashire outfit – founder members of the Football League – were approaching financial meltdown.

Bolton subsequently entered administration and Connell was sold to Scottish giants Celtic for a six-figure fee that summer. In terms of addressing the club's horrendous deficit, it represented a drop in the ocean.

Several top-flight clubs had been linked with the schemer and despite the parlous situation at Bolton, his own future looked bright – he was called up to the Republic of Ireland senior squad that year.

The brochure ultimately proved not so glossy.

In his first two years at Celtic Park, he failed to make the first-team breakthrough and survived on a diet of Under-23s football.

Then, Glasgow minnows Queens took him on loan on two occasions and it has proved the making of him.

Speak to his current manager in Michael Duff and another Ireland call shouldn't be long in coming.

Connell, who joined Barnsley last summer, said: "It was definitely good. After a year at Celtic, I had a couple of good loan moves ready and lined up because people had sort of heard about me at Bolton.

"As the years go by and I hadn't played much football, people can forget about you and that's how football works.

"I am definitely grateful to Queen's Park and I cannot thank them enough for how they pushed me on and got me back into this position where I am.

"I was ticking over for Celtic reserves and stuff and there was not a lot on it. It's not a lot of 'winning football.'

"It was good to get out there and play 'men's football' and that really is men's football. The wages are completely different and they are playing to win and for their livelihoods and you have got to buy into that as well and it was good to get involved in that."

On the prospects of securing a third successive promotion in consecutive seasons, he continued: "I don't think that opportunity comes around very often and I will strive for that and hopefully make it three."

The surroundings may be familiar to Connell today, but, psychologically speaking, Bolton is a club far removed from the demoralised, stricken entity he left just under four years ago.

It was a time when many demotivated players and coaching staff went unpaid for spells.

One game was called off due to a wages dispute with players refusing to play, while a food bank even opened to assist staff who had not been paid.

Bolton are now a club transformed. Should Wanderers secure promotion back to the Championship which they exited in 2018-19, they will have gone full circle.

Connell, of course, is anxious to avoid that happening just yet.

"It is good to see the club back on its feet and it was never, ever anything against that club (from me),” he added. "For all the people that I know there, it's good for them as well.

"There's still a few people there I know. One of the lads I did my scholarship (Ted Moulden) with is there and unfortunately he had an injury. But he's the kit man there now, so it will be good to catch up with him.

"But (on Saturday) it's us versus them and we are going to focus on ourselves and want the best for ourselves first."

Today's occasion is the first part of a big weekend double-header for the Connell family, many of whom will be in attendance.

A football-daft family like countless others on Merseyside, the Connell's – while backing a side in red today – are very much in the blue corner in terms of their allegiances in Liverpool.

Premier League survival for Everton, alongside promotion for the Reds of Barnsley, would represent a perfect double.

Speaking of Blues, it was actually the blues of Chelsea who inspired Connell's first name in the shape of Gianluca Vialli – his father Andrew's favourite player when he was growing up.

Connell said: "We are big Everton fans in the family and all my family and cousins go to the games, home and away. It's been a harder time for them than the Barnsley fans this year, I think. I hope they can stay up and hope we can do it as well.

"Everton have a game against (Manchester) City at home on Sunday, so all my family will be there on Saturday. But if you ask my cousins, Everton comes first and that's just how it is."