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Wanderers might have struggled to find the knockout punch of late but Ian Evatt is adamant his team are no rope-a-dopes.
Three league games without a goal – in a season where Bolton have not exactly been free-scoring – has raised a note of criticism from some quarters, who believe more firepower will be needed to sustain a push for the top six.
Nowhere would a response be more appreciated than at Accrington on Saturday, not only the closest game approximating a local derby this season, but also a venue that bears some bad memories for the club in recent years.
Evatt has been protective of his strikers, arguing that they are offering more than the ‘goals for’ column suggests. And he stands by his claim that from the half-time whistle at Forest Green, his team has created enough to warrant more than it got, especially in last weekend’s frustrating draw against Barnsley.
But the boxing enthusiast is also sympathetic to supporters’ concerns that too much ground is being ceded to the teams above, and he would be happy to see an early knockout at the Crown Ground this weekend.
“At the minute it is more than a slow death than a quick kill, I get that,” he told The Bolton News.
“We are trying to win on points rather than knock someone out, and I’d rather us be a razor-sharp Floyd Mayweather with the right hand of Mike Tyson, that is what I want us to be. But it is a process, we are not going to become the complete package overnight.
“There has been a lot of hard work behind the scenes, a lot which has gone on in the two-and-a-bit years I have been here and I’d like to think we are progressing. I have no doubts that we have progressed this year.
“You manage the bad times and the off games. We want to be consistent with it, and we haven’t quite managed that yet, but it should be a warning to everyone else because we are seventh in the league and haven’t put it all together. What happens when we do?”
Evatt insists that with the exception of the finishing touch, his team has improved in just about every aspect he targeted in the summer after assessing their first season back in League One.
One might cynically suggest that is the only metric that matters, or that possession, regains and final third entries – all terms that have seeped into modern football vernacular – do not necessarily guarantee points.
But the Bolton boss maintains that improvement in those areas was a must if his team are to challenge at the top end of the table, and that finding the goals to go with the build-up is now the final challenge.
“It is difficult, I think, to make judgements or to see and feel certain things straight after a game, or during a game,” he said. “Everyone is emotional, you just want to win, no matter what.
“But I think when the dust settles and you look at the games we can get a bit more perspective, you can dig into the real detail. And when we have done that, we have found we are doing a lot of things right.
“I really think with just a little bit of hard work, we can be the team I think we can be.
“Other than the Port Vale game, when we had 10 men, and the second half at Ipswich we have dominated possession in every game,” he said.
“We are getting more of the ball and creating good chances and our pressing strategy is better. We worked really hard on that in pre-season.
“We are more intense out of possession and winning the ball higher up the pitch and once we get it, we are managing it better. But of course, you need to finish off that good work and convert chances, that is where we have to improve.
“We are not a newly promoted team anymore and we have gathered a reputation for ourselves, which means that opposition teams change to combat what we are good at. No matter who they are – top six or bottom six – they are happy to come, sit men behind the ball and sacrifice possession, stay with us, play for a counter, a transitional moment, or a set play.
“We have to take some credit from that but it also becomes more difficult for us and that first goal becomes absolutely vital. We need to put more into getting it because when we do, especially early on, it completely changes what the opposition can do against us.”
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