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The top 10 countdown begins today for Wanderers and they have not given up hope of the number one spot just yet!
Portsmouth have dominated top spot for the last 18 matchdays, with Ian Evatt’s side the only team to dislodge them since mid-September.
But while John Mousinho’s side has put Frankie Laine, Bryan Adams and Wet Wet Wet to shame with their tenure at the top of the charts, the league title is far from a foregone conclusion and like Bolton, they face some appetising games against their direct rivals during the run-in.
“At the minute Portsmouth are in the strongest position but arguably they have also got the toughest run-in,” Evatt told The Bolton News. “When you are playing regular football as we are at the moment, a lot can change in a week. We have seen it ourselves.
“Obviously for us it is about putting points on the board with good performances and focusing on what we do. Everything else will take care of itself.
“It is impossible as a human not to cast a wandering eye on other teams. But I have told the players that it needs to be me, the staff and the fans, they need to concentrate on performing for our club for the last 10 games.”
Though February yielded just nine points for Bolton and whittled down the advantage they had held against Derby County, Barnsley and the chasing pack, an encouraging start has been made to March.
Victory against Cambridge United followed by a brave second-half comeback at Barnsley has buoyed the mood and put the Whites back into the automatic promotion spots outright for the first time since late January.
Their mountainous fixture schedule in league and cup since the turn of the year, coupled with two abandoned games, has intensified the workload on Evatt and his players.
But as he prepared to make a long journey to Exeter City, the Bolton boss said he had picked up on some positive signs in the days after the draw at Oakwell.
“I think being in the top two at this point is an incredible achievement, particularly if you throw in the injuries we have had during that time as well,” he said. “It has been testament to the players that, on the whole, they have managed to find a way to get points on the board.
“I sense things with the players I’ve got, and I think I’m a pretty good judge on what I am going to get. And I just feel they are coming back to themselves again.
“The last few games I have sensed that things are starting to click into gear again.
“Since the turn of the year probably we have been managing games, getting results, but not necessarily being at our best. And a bit like I felt at Sheffield Wednesday last season before the final, how important that reset was, I get the feeling now that the players are responding and enjoying their work again.
“We are in for an exciting end to the season.”
An international break awaits after next weekend’s game at Derby, which Evatt admits is a landmark he cannot wait to reach.
The Wanderers boss has shown signs of fraying at the edges in a stressful spell, with his team playing Saturday-Tuesday for near-enough three solid months.
But he admits the biggest toll the schedule has taken has been on his ability to coach players and put information into his team on the training ground.
He said: “It has been a really tough period and that one was incredibly so because of the Blackpool and Wigan games we lost but I think it will be 10 weeks by the time we get to the break of Saturday-Tuesdays. And as a manager who loves to coach, spent time on the grass, you lose that part of it because it is play-recover, play-recover. You don’t get to work on the things I feel we need to work on.
“We will get that opportunity at the international break and beyond, which is exciting for me, but at the minute everything is crammed into such a tight period the players are just in a routine of playing then recovering. Most of my time is based around the tactical planning, looking at opposition, working on what we’ll do and trying to get the information on to the players without having the necessary time on the grass is sometimes a challenge.
“It has been relentless but there are three huge games in a week now and then we can look at how we finish the season strongly.”
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