It’s fair to say that whether you personally agree with it or not, Bolton Wanderers manager Ian Evatt has taken a huge amount of criticism off supporters this year, with fans unhappy at their league position.
The Trotters were beaten by Oxford United in last year’s playoff final at Wembley when they were favourites to win, and were expected to mount an almighty bid for automatic promotion this time around.
However that has been far from the case as they have looked sluggish and out of ideas at times this season, and find themselves just outside the playoff positions.
However you could argue that Sunday’s win over fellow promotion rivals Lincoln City was just the kind of performance Bolton needed to cap off 2024, dominating possession and shots on goal as well as most importantly coming away with a 3-0 win.
Speaking to club media, Evatt spoke about wanting to kick on from this performance, as well as trying to put aside the pressure that himself and the players have representing such a huge club at League One level:
“I thought that was a lot more like it and a lot more like us and hopefully we can build on that now,”
“We’ve spoken about our fundamentals and what makes us a good team and reminded the players of that. The players have lacked some belief and confidence.”
“Everybody feels the pressure and feels the heat. We know what we need to do and want to do and sometimes if the players are playing within themselves it doesn’t help the style we want to play in and the brand we have brought for the last four-and-a-half years.”
Bolton kick off 2025 with a crazy four matches away from home in league and cup, perhaps none more important than Wednesday’s trip to Mansfield Town, a side who are also on the hunt for promotion. Evatt was keen to look back on the year as a whole as more positive than negative, despite the playoff defeat:
“It (the year) has been football and football is a rollercoaster. You have highs and you have lows. It’s how you manage the lows and manage the highs and try and stay consistent.”
“We’ve had huge highs and huge lows in this year. We’ve had some good performances but then losing at Wembley was really tough. It was a difficult start to this season but we’re still here, we’re still in the mix and we’re going to keep fighting.”
Writers View
Personally I think that Ian Evatt has done an outstanding job in recent years with Bolton but can see why fans are frustrated. At the end of the day, football is a results business and a club like Bolton should be challenging for automatic promotion, not struggling to get into the playoffs.
You’d suspect they give him the rest of the season if the board back him in January to stay but after that, if The Trotters are still way off where they want to be as a club it may be time to look elsewhere…..
