Home
For once, Ian Evatt got the chance to play ‘good cop’ at Barrow, stepping out of the dressing room to commend the character he had questioned only days earlier in his players.
Antoni Sarcevic’s injury time goal spared him the embarrassment of defeat on his return to Holker Street and having controlled the game for the entire second half he felt it was the least his side deserved.
Behind the scenes, however, a very different message was being sent out.
Two of the most experienced heads in the side, Sarcevic and Eoin Doyle, were pointing out that a point was nothing to be celebrated on the team bus.
Evatt has set high standards on the training ground since his arrival in the summer and admits he is yet to get absolutely everyone to the level he wants them on a daily basis.
But he is encouraged that some of the strongest voices in the dressing room are now helping it self-police, a sure sign that the team is starting to take shape.
“I think the world of all my players but particularly the senior ones. I think Sarce and Doyler, to single two out, have really stepped up to the plate this last couple of weeks,” Evatt told The Bolton News.
“When the manager and the assistant manager are constantly nit-picking and criticising, critiquing performances, it can become a bit boring to the players and sometimes it needs to come from them.
“After the game I praised their resilience, I praise their character, but Doyler didn’t, Sarce didn’t, they went straight after them and said it wasn’t good enough. I agree with them but sometimes it needs to come from them. They need to be told by a fellow professional that they should have won that game. It is great to hear them putting demands on each other and long may it continue.
But for a short break at Loughborough University in July, a time when only half of the current squad were actually signed to the club, there has been little opportunity for this Bolton team to bond in the normal way.
Evatt now has a group of 20 new signings, alongside half a dozen players who came down with Wanderers from League Two last season. Organising them as a unit is proving more problematic than expected but the head coach believes there are some factors to be taken into mitigation with Bolton’s early-season struggles.
“When you have got 20 new players, because we have not been able to socialise outside of work, with everything that is going on with the pandemic, some of them don’t even know each other yet. They only see each other for a couple of hours on the training ground and then on a matchday,” he said.
“They haven’t had a chance to go out for food or have a pint together, these things are important to build relationships and understand what they are like as human beings, first and foremost.
“They are still figuring all that out. And along the way we are not going to get every player right. Recruitment is hard. You won’t get every single one correct but the group will filter it out for themselves and figure out who they can trust and who needs work with their professionalism, their character, the way they play. They will police themselves, and it’s starting to happen.”
Evatt and his assistant sat down with the players on Thursday to go over the game-plan for Saturday’s visit to table-topping Cambridge United.
And encouraging players to make better on-field judgements could be the next step in the rapid evolution of this hastily-assembled group of Wanderers.
“There’s always, and this is the critical point, obviously as a player that has huge experience of all levels of football, as does my assistant Peter, we see things and during the first half, we all recognise strengths and weaknesses of the opposition really quickly.
“We do our analysis work obviously before the game, but sometimes teams will change for us or they’ll change to beat us.
“What I would say is our players need to be better at pitch intelligence and match intelligence, recognising what the opposition are doing without me having to commentate through the game, which is easier at the minute because there’s no fans there, but eventually fans are going to return and without me having to get to half-time to then tweak and change things or tell them where the space is or tell them what the opposition are doing, they have to recognise that for themselves.
“On Tuesday, Barrow were ridiculously high with their line, stupidly high with their line, and we had to recognise that and I don’t think we did until half-time. We had runners going in behind but the pass and the decision maker on the ball wasn’t making the right decision, they were going too short, looking too short to build, when actually the space was up there.
“They have to recognise that for themselves and start coaching and teaching each other themselves and then with our input at half-time and full-time, post-match and pre-match, it will help them but game intelligence, especially from the experienced players, they have to get that across better.”
Source
Antoni Sarcevic’s injury time goal spared him the embarrassment of defeat on his return to Holker Street and having controlled the game for the entire second half he felt it was the least his side deserved.
Behind the scenes, however, a very different message was being sent out.
Two of the most experienced heads in the side, Sarcevic and Eoin Doyle, were pointing out that a point was nothing to be celebrated on the team bus.
Evatt has set high standards on the training ground since his arrival in the summer and admits he is yet to get absolutely everyone to the level he wants them on a daily basis.
But he is encouraged that some of the strongest voices in the dressing room are now helping it self-police, a sure sign that the team is starting to take shape.
“I think the world of all my players but particularly the senior ones. I think Sarce and Doyler, to single two out, have really stepped up to the plate this last couple of weeks,” Evatt told The Bolton News.
“When the manager and the assistant manager are constantly nit-picking and criticising, critiquing performances, it can become a bit boring to the players and sometimes it needs to come from them.
“After the game I praised their resilience, I praise their character, but Doyler didn’t, Sarce didn’t, they went straight after them and said it wasn’t good enough. I agree with them but sometimes it needs to come from them. They need to be told by a fellow professional that they should have won that game. It is great to hear them putting demands on each other and long may it continue.
But for a short break at Loughborough University in July, a time when only half of the current squad were actually signed to the club, there has been little opportunity for this Bolton team to bond in the normal way.
Evatt now has a group of 20 new signings, alongside half a dozen players who came down with Wanderers from League Two last season. Organising them as a unit is proving more problematic than expected but the head coach believes there are some factors to be taken into mitigation with Bolton’s early-season struggles.
“When you have got 20 new players, because we have not been able to socialise outside of work, with everything that is going on with the pandemic, some of them don’t even know each other yet. They only see each other for a couple of hours on the training ground and then on a matchday,” he said.
“They haven’t had a chance to go out for food or have a pint together, these things are important to build relationships and understand what they are like as human beings, first and foremost.
“They are still figuring all that out. And along the way we are not going to get every player right. Recruitment is hard. You won’t get every single one correct but the group will filter it out for themselves and figure out who they can trust and who needs work with their professionalism, their character, the way they play. They will police themselves, and it’s starting to happen.”
Evatt and his assistant sat down with the players on Thursday to go over the game-plan for Saturday’s visit to table-topping Cambridge United.
And encouraging players to make better on-field judgements could be the next step in the rapid evolution of this hastily-assembled group of Wanderers.
“There’s always, and this is the critical point, obviously as a player that has huge experience of all levels of football, as does my assistant Peter, we see things and during the first half, we all recognise strengths and weaknesses of the opposition really quickly.
“We do our analysis work obviously before the game, but sometimes teams will change for us or they’ll change to beat us.
“What I would say is our players need to be better at pitch intelligence and match intelligence, recognising what the opposition are doing without me having to commentate through the game, which is easier at the minute because there’s no fans there, but eventually fans are going to return and without me having to get to half-time to then tweak and change things or tell them where the space is or tell them what the opposition are doing, they have to recognise that for themselves.
“On Tuesday, Barrow were ridiculously high with their line, stupidly high with their line, and we had to recognise that and I don’t think we did until half-time. We had runners going in behind but the pass and the decision maker on the ball wasn’t making the right decision, they were going too short, looking too short to build, when actually the space was up there.
“They have to recognise that for themselves and start coaching and teaching each other themselves and then with our input at half-time and full-time, post-match and pre-match, it will help them but game intelligence, especially from the experienced players, they have to get that across better.”
Source