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Eoin Toal will be back in the Bolton Wanderers squad for Saturday’s home game against Fleetwood, Ian Evatt has confirmed.
The Northern Ireland defender has been missing since the Papa Johns Trophy final win against Plymouth Argyle with an ankle injury but returned to full training at the start of the week and is already being considered for selection.
MJ Williams has played as an auxiliary defender while Toal and skipper Ricardo Santos have been out of commission and Evatt has praised the former Liverpool man for the job he has done for the team.
“It will be a huge boost to have Eoin back – but I have to say that MJ was exceptional again and did everything he could,” he said after last night’s 1-0 defeat against Accrington Stanley.
“It was a couple of mistakes for the goal and the people missing chances are equally culpable. We have to take responsibility as a team and try and improve from it, so we will go again on Saturday.”
Evatt has also hinted that he may pursue his complaint with referee James Linnington and his officials after last night’s game, branding their performance as “arrogant”.
Stanley’s attempts to slow the game down after forging ahead were understandable, in the view of the Bolton boss, but should have been managed better by the man in charge of the game.
“I have got no qualms with Accrington whatsoever, they had to do whatever they could to get a result and if the referee allows them to get away with it then it will happen more and more. It became a huge frustration and 20,000 fans aren’t wrong,” he said.
“It is just the arrogance that was carried with it – no communication, no talking, just an air of arrogance.
“We will go about things the right way and speak to who we need to speak to, but that was unacceptable.”
Evatt hopes his players can shrug off the disappointment of the defeat, which guarantees that the play-off race will go to the final weekend of the season.
Bolton can do themselves the power of good by beating Fleetwood on Saturday at home but the manager says extra shooting practice is not necessarily the answer.
“We do enough of that, for us it is just about taking the moments,” he said. “We haven’t done that over the last three games but we have created an awful lot, which is a positive sign, really.
“I don’t think performance-wise there was a great deal wrong, we completely dominated the game but conceded a really poor goal, which isn’t like us. We then had huge opportunities to get ahead or get level but didn’t take them.
“For us, it is about keeping them positive. We have to park it.”
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