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Ian Evatt has asked Wanderers fans to keep a sense of perspective when being critical of the club’s recent form.
After their humiliating FA Cup exit to non-league Stockport County on Wednesday, Bolton improved dramatically at Wycombe – but were still handed their fifth defeat in seven league games.
Sam Vokes’s second-half header was enough to sink Evatt’s men, who had lost Amadou Bakayoko and Josh Sheehan to long-term injury before kick-off, and then midfield ball-winner MJ Williams to a dislocated shoulder shortly after half time.
Lady Luck is certainly not smiling on the Whites at present, and Evatt hopes fans can stay behind his efforts to turn things around.
“We don’t need criticism,” he said after the game. “When we lose games we are all disappointed and no-one was more disappointed than me and the players on Wednesday and I thought we got a great reaction today.
“We need everybody’s support. This is tough and challenging for everybody but we have been through worse. People can get carried away with recent results or where we are in League One – by the way, we were 20th in League Two last season.
“So let’s have a bit of perspective and see how far we have come in a short space of time. We were 20th in League Two in January this year, now we’re mid-table in League One.
“We know we can better and that there are things to work and improve on. We know January is just around the corner. But for now the players need your support, I need your support, I think we have earned that.”
Wycombe had been on a rocky patch of their own, having won only one of their previous five in the league. But the win takes them back into fourth, two points behind leaders Plymouth Argyle.
Having looked so ragged at Stockport a few days earlier, Evatt was pleased to see Wanderers up their performance level.
“We are competitive in every game,” he said. “We were woeful on Wednesday but we were still competitive – we lost the game in extra time, not 90 minutes.
“We looked more defensively solid today and did the ugly side really well but we just didn’t take our chances in the final third, it isn’t like we didn’t create anything.
“They have just come down from the Championship and they are a team that has been together a long time. They ask you loads of questions and we have been asked of late if we can be competitive and play against teams that do that to us – today I think we showed we can.
“We had chances, big ones, Dapo had two big chances, Kacha had one at the end and there were a couple of other situations where defenders have got good blocks in.
“It was a competitive game, a good game, and I don’t think either team deserved to lose.”
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