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Ian Evatt trusts his Wanderers can get the job done after spending so long in the play-off picture.
Having spent several months in the top six, Bolton face Shrewsbury Town tomorrow balanced precariously on the fringe of the top six via goal difference.
The Whites still have a game in hand on Peterborough United and Derby County – which will be played on Tuesday night against Accrington Stanley – but go into the first of three home games knowing they must deliver points to get themselves over the line.
Shrewsbury took advantage of a rare defensive off-day back in December to inflict a 3-2 defeat on Wanderers, who had lost Ricardo Santos to illness the same week.
They will once again play without their skipper on Saturday but Evatt feels they have found a way to cope better with the type of direct football they are likely to face against the Shropshire men.
“We dipped at Portsmouth and we dipped at Shrewsbury when we came under pressure – that’s twice away from home – when they came under real pressure,” he told The Bolton News.
“That is a big improvement on last season and I think the players now understand more about resetting after a negative. It has to happen quickly.
“If we face adversity we have to focus again as quickly as possible.
“We know how Shrewsbury have played but there’s a danger – you have to find balance between discussing their threat and not mentioning it at all. You don’t want to make the players paranoid or play in fear.
“It comes down to execution on the day and we trust the players to go out there and do it.”
Wanderers are expecting around 18,000 supporters this weekend for what is only the second home game since March 11.
The previous encounter, a 1-1 draw with Cambridge United, saw more than 24,000 take advantage of reduced prices on Family Day, yet ultimately leave frustrated after the visitors managed to level in the 95th minute.
Evatt hopes his players can help encourage a positive atmosphere with the football they play against Shrewsbury.
“It is our duty to excite the fans,” he said. “Strip it all back and this is an entertainment industry and our fans pay a huge amount of money to enjoy what they are seeing.
“We understand how emotional watching football can be, wanting the right result and to achieve something this season, but the players have to stay in the present and focus on themselves. If they do that, we believe it will be enough to win.
“We can never guarantee what the opposition is trying to do, or what team they will pick, but what we try to do is give players the solutions to cope with any given situation.
“They are getting better at that. When the whistle goes it is down to them to make the right decisions and this season they have largely been consistent in doing that. We’ll trust them out there again.”
Tuesday night’s draw against Burton Albion was a step in the right direction, says Evatt, even if his side failed to claim maximum points.
“The players can sense it, they are not silly, they understand what a good performance looks like for us and the data backs that up,” he said. “We showed them some data today about our performance at Oxford, our performance at Exeter and the one at Burton and they can see the numbers are different.
“You don’t always get what you deserve in football and, arguably, we got a little bit more than we deserved at Oxford on Saturday but that’s football. It is gone, we move on to Saturday.”
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