Amadou Bakayoko a doubt for Sierra Leone games after injury

Amadou Bakayoko could miss out on his first international experience after picking up an injury as he scored a winning goal for Wanderers at Crewe.

The striker reported pain in his calf after grabbing his 11th goal of the season for Bolton at the Mornflake Stadium.

Evatt was delighted with the 26-year-old’s contribution off the bench, which gives him a goal every 153.9 minutes for Wanderers in his 26 appearances this season.

It was also his fifth goal inside the last 15 minutes of a game, a total bettered by only two other players in the division – Oxford United’s Cameron Branagan and Cambridge United’s Joe Ironside.

Bakayoko was supposed to be travelling this week to Turkey to play his first game for Sierra Leone but Evatt confirmed the trip was now in doubt.

“I think to be honest Baka hurt his calf when he came on so whether he’ll travel or not, I don’t know, that’s a bit of a worry at the moment,” he said.

On his reaction the striker’s winner, which gives him a career-best 11 goals this term, he added: “I think we do create chances and he has taken and scored some really important goals,” he said. “If felt a bit like it wasn’t ever going to come at the start of the second half, it was shot after shot, attack after attack and obviously hitting the post and the keep making some good saves, but we dug in and we kept going and I’m delighted to Baka to get an important goal.”

Evatt admitted his players had to win the game at Crewe playing a style of football that did not come naturally.

A patchy pitch and windy conditions made for a poor spectacle and, as such, the Bolton boss felt he could not be too critical at half time.

“It is really challenging and difficult to get our players to switch modes because everything we coach and train and what we’ve developed and are, that’s not it,” he said. “It’s almost we have to rip a plaster off and go ‘right, this is how we’re going to have to win today’ and it is alien to them.

“They want to play, they want to create, they want to move, they want to rotate and it’s not about that today.

“It’s just about playing into good areas, being difficult to beat, winning second balls, winning the transitions and we did that better second half than what we did first half.”

Evatt had made one change to the side beaten by Plymouth last time out, with Kieran Sadlier replacing the injured Marlon Fossey as right wing-back.

And he was pleased with the former Rotherham man’s performance in Cheshire.

“He did really well. He gives us options in numerous position,” Evatt said. “ Obviously Marlon (Fossey) and his energy is a big loss for us but I thought Kieran slipped in there and did really well and shows the quality of his set piece taking and his free kicks. There was one or two where he caused the keeper some problems and we’ve managed to finish it off at the end. I was pleased with them all. The position we’re in the league, it would have been easy to duck out and to see the game out 0-0, but they kept going and I’m delighted to get the win.”

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I just don't understand this mentality???

Ian Evatt wrote:Evatt admitted his players had to win the game at Crewe playing a style of football that did not come naturally.

A patchy pitch and windy conditions made for a poor spectacle and, as such, the Bolton boss felt he could not be too critical at half time.

“It is really challenging and difficult to get our players to switch modes because everything we coach and train and what we’ve developed and are, that’s not it,” he said. “It’s almost we have to rip a plaster off and go ‘right, this is how we’re going to have to win today’ and it is alien to them.

“They want to play, they want to create, they want to move, they want to rotate and it’s not about that today.

“It’s just about playing into good areas, being difficult to beat, winning second balls, winning the transitions and we did that better second half than what we did first half.”

Shouldn't this be blindingly obvious to him then???

Sluffy wrote:I think personally, the area in which we could strengthen is by developing a system to be competitive in games against teams who are physical and/or those that just come for a draw and park the bus.

We've got the Icelandic lad and Baka and we play with either wingbacks or previously two wide front men so we could go more long ball at times rather than keep trying to tippy tappy the ball up the field when the pitch is a quagmire or we are playing during a blizzard!

Horses for courses and all that, where as Evatt's mantra so far as always been about one distinct style of play.

It does seem to work well, very well at times, when the opposition have come to give us a game but it doesn't cut it when they either bully us like Rotherham, or park the bus for much of the game.

Easy for me to say, I know but we do know such games will be coming up next season and we know we don't perform well in them with the system we have been using.  Surely it isn't beyond the capabilities of a decent manager and coaches to plan ahead for such scenarios and spend time formulating how to cope much better in them?