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Ian Evatt is banking on his attacking players regaining their composure in double-quick time to save Wanderers’ play-off run.
Goals have suddenly become scarce for the Whites, who have not scored more than once in a game since lifting the Papa Johns Trophy at Wembley.
Defeat against Accrington on Tuesday night was their first in eight – and a top-six spot is guaranteed if they beat Fleetwood on Saturday and Bristol Rovers on the last day of the season.
Evatt cannot help but be concerned, however, that a team which has not been free-scoring for much of campaign has now hit a dry spell at exactly the wrong time.
“The chances haven’t dried up and we have created enough to win most games but for whatever reason we have lost a little bit of composure in front of goal,” he told The Bolton News. “Our last decision, our last pass hasn’t been right, we’re over-thinking things or taking too many touches.
“We need to get back to being instinctive and making sure that we stay composed and confident.
“Football is a crazy game. It takes months and months to build up confidence but you can almost lose it overnight.
“As we always do, we will back the strikers to get it right on Saturday.”
Evatt commended the Bolton fans for remaining behind the team on Tuesday night – and while the performance has been roundly criticised, he hopes the same will be the case this weekend.
“Everyone could have predicted what the game would look like – they were physical, direct, and for the majority, we stood up to it,” he said.
“We conceded a soft goal which was our own doing. That gave them something to hang on to.
“We are frustrated that we didn’t take any of the many chances we created after that but that frustration has to be left here and now. We have to move on and get ready for Saturday, which is a really big game now.
“I have to say the crowd was excellent. They backed us from minute one to minute 94 – and how there was only 94 I don’t know – but if they do the same on Saturday it will really help us.”
Evatt’s side has remained defensively sound in recent weeks and will welcome back centre-half Eoin Toal to the squad for Saturday’s game after four weeks out with an ankle injury.
The Bolton boss insists goals are the only thing missing – and scoring earlier in games could help to settle the nerves.
“I do think we did some good things, and some bad things as well,” he said of the Accrington defeat. “It is really only in the final third that we looked out of sorts.
“That is inexplicable because it isn’t as if we are not creating anything – it is simply not taking them. It’s an old saying but goals change games.
“If we had scored first, or got level on half time, it would have shifted the whole momentum and how they are feeling about things.
“We must stop over-thinking and making sure we are more clinical in the final third.”
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