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Ian Evatt has pledged to make major changes for his side’s game at Plymouth on Tuesday night.
Although Wanderers are likely to be missing Gethin Jones, Kieran Lee and Declan John through injury and Ricardo Santos through suspension, the Bolton boss says he will stretch his squad to the limit to find a reaction from the weekend’s defeat against Wigan.
“It is still not looking great,” he said of the injury situation. “We are not going to sit and make excuses. Yes, we have injuries, yes, it was poor timing, but it is what it is. Injuries happen in football.
“I have decisions to make. There is not one player, other than MJ Williams, who did themselves justice on Saturday so there will be changes at Plymouth, absolutely there will.
“We have only got so many players, so the one who were involved against Wigan, we want a reaction from them, and then with changes in the team we want to make sure we perform a darn site better than we did on Saturday.”
Evatt is also banned from the touchline, meaning assistant Peter Atherton and first team coach Sam Hird will be directing operations from the dugout.
After picking up a fourth yellow card of the season on Saturday, the Bolton boss accepts he may also have to examine his own conduct in future.
“They will probably get less earache or one less voice shouting at them,” he said of his absence. “It was another bad part of Saturday, me getting suspended, and I actually don’t think I did a lot wrong to get the yellow card. It is probably because of my behaviour in previous games I was given it. That is something I need to look at.
“I am a very young manager and still have plenty to learn. We shouldn’t really forget how far we have come in a short space of time and we all have things to improve on – that’s one for me.”
Evatt was planning to meet with his players at the Lostock training ground before they get aboard the team bus for a near 300-mile journey to Devon.
And having digested every detail of the Wigan defeat at the weekend, he was keen to put some points across before they got on board.
“On reflection, having watched it back twice, we were nowhere near good enough and credit to them,” he said. “On the day they were the better team.
“First half wasn’t actually as bad as I first thought it was but it was still nowhere near the level I know we can get to.
“We had one or two opportunities we didn’t take and maybe on the rough end of a handball decision for the first goal, but it happens.
“Hopefully the journey is long enough for them to gather their thoughts and think about what we did and what we didn’t do, the people we let down,” he said. “We have to play with passion and pride that we didn’t do on Saturday and win the game.”
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