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A dozen points separates Wanderers and automatic promotion spots – but Ian Evatt says his side will never give up the chase
League leaders Plymouth Argyle visit the University of Bolton Stadium today four points clear of Sheffield Wednesday at the top, and six ahead of third-placed Ipswich Town.
Steven Schumacher’s side have lost just three of their 25 games so far this season to keep ahead of the division’s biggest budgets and Evatt admits it will take a huge turnaround for the Pilgrims to be caught, even at the halfway stage.
Evatt expects all three sides to significantly strengthen their squad before the end of January, making the task of catching them all the more difficult.
But the Bolton boss says a result this afternoon would be a perfect start.
“Reining them in will be tough, partly because the teams above us are really strong,” he told The Bolton News.
“You have two financial powerhouses in this division in Ipswich and Sheffield Wednesday that are spending miles more than anyone else. That will be challenging because I am guessing they are going to strengthen again.
“You hear things behind the scenes being in the game and Ipswich, I have no doubt, will spend a lot of money in this window and possibly Wednesday as well. That is what we are up against.
“But if it were that simple the team that spends the most money get promotion every year then football would be a pretty boring game, wouldn’t it? That won’t be the case.
“It brings its own pressures and Plymouth are just doing amazingly well at the moment, so if they carry on doing that then nobody can catch them.
“The only thing you can say is that football seasons are played over a long time and it is difficult to keep that kind of form up for a 46-game season.
“We have to hope they slip up. We have to hope we go on an amazing run.”
Evatt does have the comfort of knowing his Bolton side has traditionally finished seasons stronger than they started them, and, as such, he refuses to write off automatic promotion as a possibility.
“We are capable,” he said. “No doubt about it.
“If you had asked me in January in my first year here whether I thought we’d get automatic promotion, I would have said yes. Not many others did. And we did it.
“Last year, if you had asked me just before Christmas whether we’d be sniffing the play-offs and ninth, people would have laughed at me. But I said we’d be OK.
“Historically we have finished strongly, we want to do that again. We have a clear goal to be in the top six, there is no denying that. And it will be difficult enough because there are lots of teams that are making drastic changes now, who have probably spent more than we have done, who are not in the position we are in.
“You have no given right to do anything. We are just trying to do things our way – a sustainable way – and a way we believe in. Hopefully that takes us to the goal of the top six, but obviously we will always have one eye on the top two as well.”
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