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Ian Evatt admits the only disappointment in a near-perfect performance at Gillingham was that his side had not racked up a bigger margin of victory.
Three goals had to be enough in the end for the dominant Whites, who were in control of the game well before Dan Phillips’ 61st minute red card for a second booking in quick succession.
Aaron Morley had set Bolton on their way with a stunning first goal for the club before Declan John and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson completed a comfortable win.
Evatt said it had been a very satisfying away day which kept his side in with a shout of a play-off place.
“I think we were excellent from start to finish,” he said. “A slight disappointment is we could have scored a hell of a lot more, but I thought we dominated the game.
“We controlled the ball like I want us to do, maybe the week on the grass and the week’s rest has given us that opportunity to work on things and implement where we want our defenders to get to receiving the ball in possession and how some of our rotations work.
“They implemented it perfectly and the only disappointment is we didn’t score enough goals. Three probably flattered them and that says a lot about our performance.”
Evatt had voiced concern about Bolton’s ability to cope with League One’s more direct sides, and with the Gills showing signs of survival instinct under new boss Neil Harris after four months in the relegation zone, he had warned his side not to let league position fool them into thinking it would be an easy outing.
“Absolutely because they’ve been doing really well and Neil (Harris) has got them really well organised and they’ve got some excellent results since he’s took over,” he said. “This is a really difficult place to come and I said in the week this has kind of been our Kryptonite coming to places like this where you’re going to have to scrap and fight and do the ugly side well and we haven’t done that well enough this season, but today we did.”
Evatt also hopes the result brings a smile to the face of Gethin Jones, whose mum Karen sadly passed away last weekend, and who had been given compassionate leave.
“It’s been an emotional week for us<” he said. “A huge rollercoaster of emotions the last couple of weeks really as we’ve had three of our players having their second child which is great, but then we’ve got the stuff going on in the Ukraine which is scary and then Gethin and his mum.
“Gethin and his family are a huge part of this football club and this is a band of brothers and when one of us is upset and hurting, we all are and we’ve all built relationships with that family because of what we did earlier on in the season. We feel for them and I asked the players today ‘there’s nothing that can ever change Gethin’s mood or anything like that for his family but the one thing that we can do today is put a smile on his face because I’m sure he’ll be looking at our result’ - hopefully that’s done that for him. We’re all here for him and we’re all supporting him as best we can.”
After a February with eight fixtures, Evatt had little time to fine-tune his side, tactically.
But with a whole week on the training ground in the lead up to the Gillingham trip, he believes the result showed that there is plenty of scope for improvement in the new-looks squad.
“I think that’s as good a football as you’ll see at many levels really,” he said. “I think the way we moved the ball on a difficult surface and how we found space, how we trusted each other with the ball was excellent.
“I thought our counterpress was good and when we gave it away, we hunted quickly and got it back. The only slight danger really was set plays and long throws but I thought we dealt with them really well. This team is a work in progress. This is a new team. We had seven new recruits in January and we haven’t had time on the grass yet, but I think that was the first signs of really having a good week and working on in possession detail. I thought our detail was fantastic today.”
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