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Ian Evatt is yet to see the ‘nastiness’ he wants in his Wanderers – but hopes a long road trip to Colchester United might just bring out a darker side.
Admitting his team has been “too nice” in their opening three games of the season, the Whites head coach is demanding something more from his players at the JobServe Stadium this weekend.
Spirits on the training ground remain high despite a difficult start to the season but Evatt would have no problem seeing some tempers flare in the dressing room, in the right circumstances.
“I hope it comes because you need it,” he told The Bolton News. “The amount of times I nearly had a scrap as a player in training or in dressing rooms is amazing. It doesn’t mean to say I wanted to knock your head off, it’s that I wanted to win.
“Providing it is taken in the right context, the right way, and it’s about the team improving and people don’t take it personally, act a bit babyish or childish about it, we have to accept it’s a men’s game and that there will be criticism.
“If it is for the good of the team and it will benefit us longer-term, then I need to see it.”
Though he arrived at Wanderers from Barrow in the summer with a manifesto of exciting attacking football, Evatt admits he would settle for a scrappy result at Colchester if it helped foster some of the confidence currently lacking in his squad.
“We need to stop being so nice,” he said. “At the moment they are a group of nice lads.
“I want them to get horrible with each other, with the opposition.
“When you are not getting results you have to grind it out and win games ugly at times. Then the attractive stuff, the passing we want, will come.
“First and foremost we have to knuckle down, win headers, win tackles, do the ugly side better. And if you do that, confidence builds, and then we’ll start blowing teams away with our football.
“We can’t just expect after seven or eight weeks to turn up and play beautiful football. We are going to have to win games ugly, for now, and then grow into the football.”
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Admitting his team has been “too nice” in their opening three games of the season, the Whites head coach is demanding something more from his players at the JobServe Stadium this weekend.
Spirits on the training ground remain high despite a difficult start to the season but Evatt would have no problem seeing some tempers flare in the dressing room, in the right circumstances.
“I hope it comes because you need it,” he told The Bolton News. “The amount of times I nearly had a scrap as a player in training or in dressing rooms is amazing. It doesn’t mean to say I wanted to knock your head off, it’s that I wanted to win.
“Providing it is taken in the right context, the right way, and it’s about the team improving and people don’t take it personally, act a bit babyish or childish about it, we have to accept it’s a men’s game and that there will be criticism.
“If it is for the good of the team and it will benefit us longer-term, then I need to see it.”
Though he arrived at Wanderers from Barrow in the summer with a manifesto of exciting attacking football, Evatt admits he would settle for a scrappy result at Colchester if it helped foster some of the confidence currently lacking in his squad.
“We need to stop being so nice,” he said. “At the moment they are a group of nice lads.
“I want them to get horrible with each other, with the opposition.
“When you are not getting results you have to grind it out and win games ugly at times. Then the attractive stuff, the passing we want, will come.
“First and foremost we have to knuckle down, win headers, win tackles, do the ugly side better. And if you do that, confidence builds, and then we’ll start blowing teams away with our football.
“We can’t just expect after seven or eight weeks to turn up and play beautiful football. We are going to have to win games ugly, for now, and then grow into the football.”
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