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Ian Evatt’s toughest challenge at Wanderers this season may not be on the pitch.
Like it or loathe it, the Bolton boss is committed to a policy of rotating his players according to the tactical requirements of the next opposition.
The methodical approach of planning ahead with team selection reduces the impact of short-term form. Gone are the days where the first XI is scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet on the team bus – much to the detriment of Messrs Benson and Hedges – these days it is more likely to be established on a spreadsheet.
Making more play of physical data and opposition analysis supplied by the specialist team led by technical performance director, Chris Markham, Evatt’s plan is to keep the components of his plan as fresh as possible.
Wanderers’ expansive style does take a heavy physical toll – a point made by Liverpool youngster Conor Bradley after Saturday’s 3-1 win against Charlton Athletic. And even more so when two games are played in the same week, as will be the case again very soon.
But while numbers and pixels may offer Evatt guidance and reasoning on his team selection, the unpredictable factor in all this is distinctly human.
Can the Bolton boss continue to move his players in and out of the team without damaging egos, or causing tension within the squad?
Injuries or suspensions will naturally mean no selection plan can be set in stone before the team kicks off on a Saturday afternoon – as we saw recently when Declan John was pulled out of the squad with injury at Plymouth.
Wanderers have made significant changes to their training patterns and workloads to try and keep future ailments to a minimum and avoid the sort of crisis point they reached last winter.
The short-term challenge will be to establish the rotation system without leaving some players feeling short-changed.
Evatt has, in fact, used just 19 different names in League One this season – with only Derby County, Cambridge United and Plymouth Argyle using fewer (18).
George Johnston, James Trafford and Gethin Jones are the only three players to play every minute in the league – with Johnston also playing every moment of the three cup games thus far. Elsewhere, game time is spread fairly evenly down to Kieran Sadlier, whose 73 minutes on the pitch so far is the topic of plenty of debate among Bolton supporters.
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On the immediate horizon are trips to two of League One’s diametrically opposed sides in Cheltenham Town and MK Dons, and 180 minutes of football that should perfectly sum up his grand plan.
On Saturday, the Whites will face a Cheltenham side who have evolved past the strictly route one team we came across in the promotion season, but who still play more long balls than any other side in the division.
Only Exeter City contest more aerial duels than the Robins (71.09 per 90 mins) albeit their success with this approach this season has been inconsistent, with less than 45 per cent of the challenges actually won.
A few days later Wanderers head for Milton Keynes, and a Dons team which were among the favourites for promotion this season but who have failed to show the kind of form which substantiates the bookmakers’ faith.
After losing Scott Twine and Harry Darling in the summer, Liam Manning embarked on a major rebuilding job, making 14 new signings. After Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Exeter City, he was left reflecting that the team still “had a lot of work to do.”
Though still a possession-based side, MK have struggled to find the sort of attacking penetration they had last season, with only Morecambe enjoying fewer touches of the ball in the penalty area over the first seven games.
Two differently styled opponents will obviously call for two different plans from Wanderers, and Evatt now has to show that by rotating his squad he can maintain momentum after an impressive return to winning ways on Saturday.
Calls for the manager to ‘stick to a winning team’ will not disappear. But it should come as no surprise to the traditionalists that Evatt and his coaching staff are intent on going their own way, just as they have since day one.
A former Bolton Wanderers manager once took issue with this writer for describing him as a ‘Tinkerman’ – the nickname once bestowed on former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri when he catapulted squad rotation into the common vernacular in the early noughties.
Times have changed, Pep Guardiola’s mastery of using his Manchester City squad to its fullest while they compete in multiple competitions have made such an approach less of an oddity than it once was.
Evatt will hope results do the talking for him but recognises that supporters are not the only ones he has to convince.
“Each game provides a different challenge and task, and for each one it is down to me to select the right personnel on any given day,” he said at the weekend.
“People will be rotated, move in and out of the match, and they have to stick to their beliefs and with each other. If they are going to be miserable and mardy then do it with me in my office. I don’t mind.
“But with each other they need to be positive because when it is their turn they will need the players’ support from the bench too.”
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Ian Evatt’s toughest challenge at Wanderers this season may not be on the pitch.
Like it or loathe it, the Bolton boss is committed to a policy of rotating his players according to the tactical requirements of the next opposition.
The methodical approach of planning ahead with team selection reduces the impact of short-term form. Gone are the days where the first XI is scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet on the team bus – much to the detriment of Messrs Benson and Hedges – these days it is more likely to be established on a spreadsheet.
Making more play of physical data and opposition analysis supplied by the specialist team led by technical performance director, Chris Markham, Evatt’s plan is to keep the components of his plan as fresh as possible.
Wanderers’ expansive style does take a heavy physical toll – a point made by Liverpool youngster Conor Bradley after Saturday’s 3-1 win against Charlton Athletic. And even more so when two games are played in the same week, as will be the case again very soon.
But while numbers and pixels may offer Evatt guidance and reasoning on his team selection, the unpredictable factor in all this is distinctly human.
Can the Bolton boss continue to move his players in and out of the team without damaging egos, or causing tension within the squad?
Injuries or suspensions will naturally mean no selection plan can be set in stone before the team kicks off on a Saturday afternoon – as we saw recently when Declan John was pulled out of the squad with injury at Plymouth.
Wanderers have made significant changes to their training patterns and workloads to try and keep future ailments to a minimum and avoid the sort of crisis point they reached last winter.
The short-term challenge will be to establish the rotation system without leaving some players feeling short-changed.
Evatt has, in fact, used just 19 different names in League One this season – with only Derby County, Cambridge United and Plymouth Argyle using fewer (18).
George Johnston, James Trafford and Gethin Jones are the only three players to play every minute in the league – with Johnston also playing every moment of the three cup games thus far. Elsewhere, game time is spread fairly evenly down to Kieran Sadlier, whose 73 minutes on the pitch so far is the topic of plenty of debate among Bolton supporters.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
On the immediate horizon are trips to two of League One’s diametrically opposed sides in Cheltenham Town and MK Dons, and 180 minutes of football that should perfectly sum up his grand plan.
On Saturday, the Whites will face a Cheltenham side who have evolved past the strictly route one team we came across in the promotion season, but who still play more long balls than any other side in the division.
Only Exeter City contest more aerial duels than the Robins (71.09 per 90 mins) albeit their success with this approach this season has been inconsistent, with less than 45 per cent of the challenges actually won.
A few days later Wanderers head for Milton Keynes, and a Dons team which were among the favourites for promotion this season but who have failed to show the kind of form which substantiates the bookmakers’ faith.
After losing Scott Twine and Harry Darling in the summer, Liam Manning embarked on a major rebuilding job, making 14 new signings. After Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Exeter City, he was left reflecting that the team still “had a lot of work to do.”
Though still a possession-based side, MK have struggled to find the sort of attacking penetration they had last season, with only Morecambe enjoying fewer touches of the ball in the penalty area over the first seven games.
Two differently styled opponents will obviously call for two different plans from Wanderers, and Evatt now has to show that by rotating his squad he can maintain momentum after an impressive return to winning ways on Saturday.
Calls for the manager to ‘stick to a winning team’ will not disappear. But it should come as no surprise to the traditionalists that Evatt and his coaching staff are intent on going their own way, just as they have since day one.
A former Bolton Wanderers manager once took issue with this writer for describing him as a ‘Tinkerman’ – the nickname once bestowed on former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri when he catapulted squad rotation into the common vernacular in the early noughties.
Times have changed, Pep Guardiola’s mastery of using his Manchester City squad to its fullest while they compete in multiple competitions have made such an approach less of an oddity than it once was.
Evatt will hope results do the talking for him but recognises that supporters are not the only ones he has to convince.
“Each game provides a different challenge and task, and for each one it is down to me to select the right personnel on any given day,” he said at the weekend.
“People will be rotated, move in and out of the match, and they have to stick to their beliefs and with each other. If they are going to be miserable and mardy then do it with me in my office. I don’t mind.
“But with each other they need to be positive because when it is their turn they will need the players’ support from the bench too.”
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