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Ian Evatt has called on Gethin Jones to help lead his new-look side up the League One table.
The Bolton boss installed Jones as vice-captain on January 10 after Eoin Doyle left to finish his playing career in Ireland.
Jones has forged a bond with the Wanderers fans, who helped him raise significant funding towards treatment for his mother, who had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease.
Once he was cleared by the medics to play again after a fractured leg, Evatt says it was a simple decision to appoint him as number two to Ricardo Santos in the dressing room.
“It was a no-brainer because I know Gethin well and know the type of leader and person he is,” Evatt told The Bolton News.
“He is a wonderful young man and with what we achieved earlier in the season for his mum, raising money for MND, it was a massive credit to him and his family.
“When he talks, people listen. He isn’t a shouter and screamer but he is educated, he is intelligent and he says things in the right manner.
“He has Bolton at heart now, he sees this as his home. He wants to do the best for this football club, and I know him and Rico get on well off the pitch, they are close, so they can both help us with a new leadership team to progress the lads.
“They need to help me help them win on a consistent basis again.”
Evatt named the youngest league line-up of his Wanderers tenure against Ipswich Town on Saturday and is unlikely to deviate significantly at Shrewsbury this weekend.
Having recruited younger players in the January window, Evatt is now hoping to add two more players – believed to be Kyle Dempsey and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson – to bring more experience to the squad.
“People sometimes forget we have got a lot of young players, ones who are only going to progress and get better,” he said. “I think we lack some leaders and the people we are trying to bring in, I see them as leaders.
“Young James (Trafford) is vocal and a leader, Aaron (Morley) is only 21 but he is a leader, the other two lads we are trying to get – one, you have probably read about, and then another is an experienced player who is an international footballer, so we are doing the best we can to bring in this type of player but not people who are on their way down.
“I want people who can maintain the playing level they had earlier in their career, who are the right age. “Being a leader is a big part of football but it is something that is going out of the game nowadays with the way society is in general. When you get hold of one of them you need to make sure you keep them and that they do the right job for you as a lieutenant in the dressing room.”
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