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Ian Evatt paid begrudging respect to Plymouth Argyle as they left the UniBol with three points on Saturday evening – but still felt short-changed by the officials.
For while there was much to admire about Steven Schumacher’s side and the way they went about a 1-0 win which keeps them firmly in the play-off hunt in League One, the Bolton boss felt the Pilgrims were allowed to ‘get away’ with numerous instances of timewasting in the second half.
After Macaulay Gillesphey had capitalised on some soft Bolton defending in the first half, Wanderers shifted formation after bringing on Kieran Sadlier and enjoyed a bigger territorial share, forcing Plymouth to try and slow the game.
Referee Robert Lewis did not produce a single booking in the game but seven minutes of added time came as little solace to Evatt, who felt more could have been done by the Shropshire official to prevent the Pilgrims from taking liberties.
“I think if you play the game again and you have exactly the same scenarios, we back ourselves to win it,” he said. “We talk about fine margins a lot and that’s again the importance of set pieces. They can cost you games and you lose one aerial duel in the box and not challenge the way you should and you’re 1-0 down and you’re chasing the game.
“But we’ve done so much right again today, even when we changed to a four, we recognised that we could play out better with a four and cause them more problems and go back to 4-3-3. They took to it really well.
“We haven’t really worked on that since the new lads have come in but they just picked it up and we carried our momentum.
“The only slight bugbear is, and it’s no disrespect to Plymouth because they’re doing what they can to win the game and obviously they’re trying to break up our momentum, but the game management and the timewasting.
“It’s okay the referee adding on seven or eight minutes, he can say we’ve added it on, but it’s the damage it does to our momentum and the disruption it gives us that causes the most problems and unless they deal with those situations and understand it, it is going to continue to happen.
“It doesn’t really matter what they add on because you never really get that time back. The momentum’s gone and we’ve got all the momentum at the right stages and the right times, so that’s my one disappointment, but other than that I’m pleased with the way the players have played. We just haven’t taken our chances.”
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