Home
Wanderers are better equipped to handle what Storm Dudley might bring at Burton Albion tonight.
Ian Evatt has seen his side suffer in adverse conditions this season at Fleetwood and Plymouth but believes his January recruitment has supplied the tools to cope with what the Pirelli Stadium might hold.
Pictures of Burton’s pitch have been a topic of conversation for Bolton fans over the past couple of days, with Leicester City’s women playing on it as recently as Sunday.
Evatt says he will be keeping a close eye on the conditions to see how best to tailor his own approach but feels confident that after braving the elements at Morecambe recently, the wind and rain no longer present such a huge danger to his tactical plans.
“I think we have learned some lessons from Morecambe, from Plymouth, from Fleetwood,” he told The Bolton News. “We need to be a more solid team and maybe approach these games with more direct football than we would usually play.
“I think we have added a few more strings to our bow with the recruitment in January, and we now have Amadou Bakayoko back in one piece, which gives us another great option.
“I don’t know if Michael Fish is still around but whoever else it is I’ll be checking out the weather forecasts and going to see the surface myself tomorrow morning before I commit to picking any particular team.
“It is then my job to get the balance right and find a way to win.”
Wanderers have Jon Dadi Bodvarsson pushing for his first start and could bring Will Aimson back into the defence to add some extra aerial threat, if necessary.
Regardless of the conditions, Evatt still expects his team to play football and feels it would play into the Brewers’ hands if they tried to play too direct.
“We have to find the right balance,” he said. “If we go to Burton trying to smash it long and win second balls, play them at that game on their own patch, then we will lose. We are not built for it.
“There are ways and means. We have to be smart with our work.
“I watched a good deal of Burton yesterday and this morning and there are a lot of long throws, set plays, and it can be difficult to deal with the number of bodies they throw forward. But we have to be calm and make sure we take opportunities going the other way.
“This type of game is more about mindset and confidence than anything else. You know what is coming but if you prepare for it in the right way then there is no reason why we can’t get the right result.”
Evatt was pleased with what he saw on Saturday at Oxford, as his side twice battled back from a goal down before grabbing a winner seven minutes before the end.
“Saturday was a fantastic game and I think everyone recognised the standard on show there but what pleased me the most was the spirit in the group, and namely the fact we always feel we can score a goal. We are always in a game,” he said.
“Even when we have a quiet spell, which happens, we have players who can change things in the blink of an eye, and we haven’t necessarily had that in the past.
“We were behind twice on Saturday and came back quickly. That shows personality.
“Second half we stayed strong, kept belief, and scored what I thought was a wonderful goal.”
Wanderers have conceded the first goal 21 times this season but have now fought back to recover 17 points from losing positions – a total which can only be bettered by MK Dons and Plymouth (19).
“It comes down to goalscoring,” Evatt reasoned. “If you feel you can get a goal at any point, you can out-score the opposition, then there is no reason to panic.
“I have said to the players a lot lately that if ever we lose a game it is because we have run out of time, not because we were beaten. We have to have that belief that we will get something if we keep going, finding the opportunities.
“Manchester City apart – and they haven’t had a centre-forward for two years but still score hundreds of goals – teams need centre-forwards and goal-scorers to function. They need to carry a threat.
“Oxford on Saturday carried that threat. We did too. Nobody really knew which way that game was going to go and it is a good feeling that we can score at the drop of a hat.”
Source