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Ian Evatt reckons his side has learned some valuable lessons on how to handle the rough terrain of League One this season.
Wanderers look on course for a top 10 finish on their return to the third tier, and a fifth-best points haul from 14 seasons of football at this level in the club’s history.
The team fell short of Evatt’s target of a play-off spot, having lost their way at the end of 2021 during an uncomfortable run of injuries, suspensions and illnesses.
But a solid January transfer window restored their fortunes and guaranteed they were the right side of what the Bolton boss believes is a widening gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ in the division.
“It is very much two divisions in one, really,” he said. “You have the top half, which are all monster clubs and predominantly ones who have been in the Premier League in the not-too-distant past or teams which have been in the Championship for significant periods of time, spending vast amounts of money, obscene amounts of money really for this level.
“It is challenging, it is competitive, but it is a very good standard. It asks you different questions.
“People think and speak about the Championship and rightly so that it’s a crazy league and one of the best leagues in the world because of its competitive nature. It offers different challenges and tasks and this league is no different.
“You could be playing Sunderland away one week in front of 40-odd thousand and the next week, you could be at Morecambe away and it’s a completely different game and you’ve got to adapt yourselves to win both games.
“We have learned from that this season but always the philosophy will remain the same. We want to dominate the ball and dominate possession and control that way but you have to find different solutions in those different challenges in games.
“As the season wore on, we learned our lessons and found those solutions.”
Evatt brought seven players in during January and hopes to bring loanees Marlon Fossey and James Trafford back to Wanderers for the start of next season.
Aaron Morley, Dion Charles, Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, Kieran Sadlier and Kyle Dempsey were all signed on a permanent basis to add depth to the squad.
Now, Evatt is targeting “quality over quantity” in the coming months in an effort to further embed the style of football he has introduced in his first two years in charge.
“I think what I’ve developed is I have a belief and a brand and an identity,” he said. “It started at Barrow and it’s continued here and it’s very much a work in progress.
“We’re adapting and progressing all the time. We want to control the ball and have possession but it has to be with a purpose. At times this season, it hasn’t been that but we’re still going through our education. It all depends on the opposition and the players have to find those in game solutions. We can do all the analysis in the world but opposition are now respecting what we do and changing for us so everything that we worked on, it might be different come Saturday.
“The players have to understand ‘if they do this, we do this’ and we are continuing that education all the time. If they are a high press and the space is the third line, then we play over the press.
“It is still possession football, still with quality but it’s understanding the look of the opposition and where they’re pressing the ball and then where the space is and then identifying that and playing with progression accordingly. That’s what we’ve developed and improved on the second half of the season.”
Saturday’s opponents Fleetwood will be relegated if they fail to match Gillingham’s result against Rotherham United and, as a result, Evatt predicts they will make cautious opponents.
“I watched the game the other night against Sheffield Wednesday and they scored from a high press situation and a set play,” he said. “Other than that, they sacrificed the ball and were hard to beat and worked their socks off because they’re fighting to stay in this division.
“I would be amazed if they came here and threw the game open. I can’t envisage that happening because I think what we have proven is if you go toe to toe with us, you can get hurt and I think they’re in a position where they have to only match Gillingham’s result so I think it would be pretty crazy for them to come here and go all guns blazing and all-out attack because we have attacking weapons that can hurt you.
“I think it’ll be cautious from them. I think they’ll keep their eye on the Gillingham score and then they’ll adapt their gameplan accordingly but I would think fundamentally they’ll play on the counterattack, sacrifice the ball and be hard to beat.”
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