Home
Wanderers wasted their golden chance to settle the play-off race before the last weekend of the season – and Ian Evatt admits they only have themselves to blame.
Ethan Hamilton’s first-half goal gave Accrington Stanley a shock win at the UniBol to give themselves a fighting chance of staying in League One.
But wasteful Bolton, who were looking to put five points between themselves and Peterborough, are now looking anxiously over their shoulder knowing they cannot wrap up a play-off spot until the last day when they face Bristol Rovers at the Memorial Stadium.
“We caused our own demise,” said a disgruntled Wanderers boss. “We got away with missing chances at Burton, we got away with missing chances against Shrewsbury, but when you continuously do it like that you make things extremely difficult.
“We gave them a goal, and against a team like that which is fighting for their lives and needing a moment of inspiration at an away stadium, it was a really poor pass, mistake and giveaway. It was a really sloppy goal that gave them a leg up.
“But then right off the back of that we had two massive chances where we had to score and that would have completely changed the second half.”
“It was all us in the second half but it got harder and harder. For whatever reason I didn’t fall for us, it wasn’t our night and it was really frustrating.”
Having forged ahead, Accrington slowed the game down as best they could – but referee James Linnington added on only six minutes in total over both halves.
Evatt was deeply unhappy with what his side got from the officials on the night.
“I have no argument with Accrington and the way they went about things,” he said. “They are fighting for their lives and it is down to the officials to stamp it out and, in my opinion, they were very poor and carried a huge amount of arrogance, which was a huge frustration.
“Two minutes and four minutes of added time is just absolutely crazy.
“And the way the game was managed was just really poor.”
Wanderers host Fleetwood on Saturday requiring a win to keep things in their own hands going into the last day – and Evatt is hoping his players can quickly put a difficult night behind them.
“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, there can be no sulking,” he said. “We have to move on immediately and focus on winning the game on Saturday and see what happens then.
“We can’t look any further or concentrate on other people’s results, we are still in the best position of the three chasing those two positions and we might just have to go about it the hard way.
“People tell me we do it the hard way, so fingers crossed we do it again.”
Source