Ian Evatt is committed to playing on the front foot

The fixture list isn’t about to get any easier for Wanderers - but Ian Evatt is committed to playing on the front foot.

The Whites’ impressive defensive numbers have been a key factor in their strong form of late, climbing to third in the League One table following five successive victories.

Saturday’s trip to Wycombe will not be easy, but Evatt maintains that attack is the best form of defence as his side aim to keep building momentum.

Speaking on the Official EFL Podcast, the manager explained: “I just feel that the best form of defence is attack. We have kept an awful lot of clean sheets this season and predominantly everyone just points the finger at the goalkeeper and the defender.

“But actually the strikers are doing an equally important job – the way we press from the front and keep the ball away from our goal. Everyone has bought into that so we are all celebrating clean sheets, not just the defenders.

“In terms of managing the ball and being an in-possession team, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that if we have got the ball, the opposition can’t score. That is the way we see it and that is how we try to do things.”

He added: “The game is risk and reward, and it is how much you are willing to risk to gain those rewards.

“Yes, sometimes we are open, we are expansive. But we have recruited players who are really athletic and can defend one-v-ones in large spaces.

“When we are getting countered on and we are a bit open because we have given the ball away, it is how quickly we react as a team.

“There is no disappointment, there is no bad body language. It is just positive action – go and hunt the ball back, press the ball and recover, and we rely on our defenders to defend those large spaces one-v-one.”

It recently emerged that Evatt had been made a minority shareholder at Wanderers along with chief executive Neil Hart.

“Sharon in her other businesses and the businesses she invests in is always of the opinion that people who do well and succeed should share a part of that journey,” said the Bolton boss.

“That was the conversation we had and I was extremely honoured to be given those shares. We are very much aligned, we are very much together and that is a rarity in football.

“I am extremely fortunate to have the owner and the board that I have got because, like every manager, there has been times in my almost three-year spell now where we have had sticky spells and it would have been easy to change managers.

“But on the flip side of that, we have done pretty well and there will be clubs who have paid an interest in me and the same loyalty is reciprocated.

“It just means we are very much aligned and on the same journey together. I think those shares are proof to everybody that is exactly what we are doing.”

Source