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Ian Evatt begins the job of picking up the pieces after a disastrous derby defeat against Wigan Athletic this morning – but admits his players cannot complain about the criticism that comes their way.
The Bolton boss admitted that performance levels in front of a packed out UniBol had dropped well below standard – but he has challenged his players to respond in a positive manner when they travel to Plymouth Argyle on Tuesday night.
“Now isn’t the time to raise voices,” he said after the game. “It is probably the time to be honest and truthful with everyone and admit we let everyone down, take it on the chin.
“We have worked really hard to build this football club and get some of the positivity we have seen recently, to have a crowd of more than 20,000 is credit to the players and what they have achieved so far.
“But we have let our fanbase down here and to get that back again and rebuild the trust might take time.
“We have all faced adversity here, most of us anyway, since the start of last season. Things in football rarely go swimmingly all the time, and you’ll have bumps in the road. Today was a huge one.
“We need to take on the criticism and bounce back.”
Wanderers’ task at Home Park will be made more complicated with Gethin Jones, Kieran Lee and Declan John all injured, Ricardo Santos suspended and Evatt himself banned from the touchline after picking up his fourth yellow card of the season.
“It doesn’t get any easier against a team top of the league and flying high, with a really long journey,” he said. “We will keep it all in house and go again on Tuesday.”
Wanderers have now lost their last two league games without scoring a goal and Evatt concedes that his players’ confidence looked brittle after an early Wigan goal.
“It is not my team,” he said. “But when you are not winning games or taking chances then it can have a knock-on effect, mentally.
“When you concede such a bad goal from a mistake, it just sapped all the confidence because at the moment we are not looking confident in front of goal with the chances we are creating.
“You could see the frustration. Credit to them – they did a good job on us, very experienced, and we just were woefully under par.”
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