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Ian Evatt feels his players are in the right frame of mind for a trio of games that could make or break their season.
Third-placed Ipswich visit the University of Bolton Stadium this afternoon before Wanderers travel to League One leaders Sheffield Wednesday on Friday.
After that, all eyes turn to Wembley, there second-placed Plymouth Argyle stand between themselves and the club’s first domestic knockout cup silverware since 1989.
Evatt admits any lingering hopes of automatic promotion will be ended if his side lose either of their two games before the final. But he is equally focussed on remaining consistent over the last stretch to ensure that if Bolton do have to go the play-off route, they will be in the best possible form.
“I think the next two games might decide if we’re in with a chance of automatic or not,” he said. “Plymouth keep winning at home, which certainly helps them.
“It feels like we are at the end but there is still a lot of football to be played. A lot can happen in a quarter of a season, and that is what is left for most.
“We just have to take care of our own business and regardless of automatic, play-off or anything else, we need to finish strong and continue to progress and build momentum.
“Any team that carries momentum towards the end of the season, it always ends up well.”
Wanderers welcome the Tractor Boys today strengthened by the return of Victor Adeboyejo and Cameron Jerome in attack and revived by a short break at the start of the week.
Evatt feels his players are in the right frame of mind for the first in a run of challenging fixtures.
“I don’t think there is any nervousness inside the camp, we have managed to reset and refresh and work on things in training,” he said.
“Obviously when you are playing against the bigger teams – not disrespect to the other ones – but you have to respect them a little bit more and focus on out-of-possession detail because these teams can hurt you. Ipswich certainly can but we feel we can hurt them as well.
“I think it will be a really good game.”
Results in midweek dropped Wanderers to fifth but they maintain a six-point gap on Wycombe, just outside the play-off spots.
All of Bolton’s rivals have games in hand – but Evatt maintains that just because they are playing catch-up does not guarantee they will close the gap.
“We don’t know what will happen,” he said. “What I’d say is that a run like that is tough. We had a hard run of five or six weeks, and it doesn’t get any easier.
“I had friends message me on Wednesday saying ‘oh, the results haven’t gone well for you tonight’ and I’m guessing thousands of Bolton fans shared exactly the same texts. But it’s football – teams are allowed to win football matches and they will lose them too. You’ll send yourself doo-lally if you concentrate on every outcome.
“What is important is that we focus on where we are right now, and I think that is a really strong position, then go from game to game. That is our mantra at the moment.
“We know we have a good run of games and we are looking forward to it.”
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