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Ian Evatt believes he saw progression in Wanderers’ performance at Cambridge on Saturday – and now wants points to show for it.
While opinion among Bolton fans appears split on whether the team showed improvement in a goalless draw at the Abbey Stadium, Evatt firmly believed it was a step in the right direction.
The Whites face another tricky away game this weekend at Fleetwood, who have beaten Accrington and Oxford United in their last two at Highbury and who fought back to rescue a last-minute point at Bristol Rovers in their most recent outing.
Evatt wants more of the defensive resilience he saw at Cambridge but admits his side still have much work to do on converting the chances they create into goals.
“We’ve got to find a balance of keeping clean sheets and being hard to beat and being open and expansive enough to attack and cause teams problems,” he said.
“We caused Cambridge problems. Away from home, you’re not going to create loads of chances, but we had two really, really good ones, ones that we really should be taking.
“That was disappointing but other than that, we’ll keep our heads down and work hard, and hope for improvement.
“We know when we come away from home we’ll have to defend the penalty box at times and I think we did that well, too. We still need to make improvements at the top end of the pitch but I do think it’s just really a confidence issue.
“I think we’re getting into the good areas, we’re creating with some good play. You don’t see many chances like that missed that but we’ll keep working hard on the training ground.
“That was a forward step for us from our performances in October and hopefully now we can kick on.”
Evatt also feels Wanderers have shown some improvement at set plays, albeit the chances they created at Cambridge were spurned.
According to data from Opta, Bolton are one of only three clubs in League One (Port Vale and Morecambe being the others) who have an xG higher than their actual goal total in open play – i.e. they are creating better chances than their return suggests.
From set pieces their record has been among the worst in the division up until the last few weeks when they have inched up a few places to 16th of 24 teams in regards to xG and 18th in actual shots created at goal.
“I thought our set pieces were a lot better,” Evatt said at Cambridge. “The delivery was well worked, some of our movements were good, we looked aggressive and we’ve created a couple of good opportunities from those and you don’t get many better than the ones that we had second half. But that happens and we’ll dust ourselves down and get ready now for next week.”
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