Home
Wanderers boss Ian Evatt says his side are learning to become more “positive” in possession.
The Whites were one of the highest teams in the division in terms of average possession in the early months of the season.
However, they have found success despite having less of the ball in the recent wins against Ipswich, Shrewsbury and Sunderland.
And Evatt is hopeful that trend will continue ahead of tonight’s clash with Cambridge at the UniBol.
“As we saw on Saturday, we had less possession than Sunderland but what we did with it was completely different to what they did,” said the Bolton boss.
“It’s about having the ball but being positive and utilising your possession in the right ways. I think we’re finding solutions now to do that.
“It helps obviously when your two frontmen set the tone of the team. I thought on Saturday our two frontmen certainly did that both in and out of possession.”
However, Evatt is keen to maintain his side’s identity and was delighted with the quality on show against the Black Cats.
He added: “I don’t think we’ve been direct by any shape or form and you can see that in the third and fourth goals (against Sunderland).
“What we’re trying to do is be more positive with our possession. We have to sometimes give the opposition the credit they deserve and Sunderland are a good footballing team.
“The opposition having possession is fine if they’re building from the back and not getting anywhere. It’s when they start penetrating you with that possession that it becomes a problem.
“We had set traps on Saturday. We understood who we wanted to have the ball and who we didn’t want to have it, and that was their centre backs.
“I heard Lee (Johnson) mention after the game that our gameplan was excellent. We imposed ourselves well and did everything we wanted to do.”
The Whites suffered a 1-0 defeat at the Abbey Stadium despite dominating possession earlier this season.
Evatt admits there could be similar games in the coming weeks and is keen to learn from their mistakes.
“There are going to be games where we have loads of possession but it’s how we use it to hurt the opposition,” he said.
“That’s something we weren’t doing very well (in recent months). Early on we were scoring lots of goals and creating lots of chances.
“Then when we had the injuries, that went the other way and we became a bit ‘tippy tappy’.
“I want us to have possession and look pleasing on the eye but I’m not doing it for my own vanity. We’re doing it for a purpose and we’re built to play that way.”
Source