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Ian Evatt wants Wanderers to be fighting to the finish as they resume their promotion chase in League One this weekend at Reading.
Buoyed by wins against Derby County and Salford City before the international break the Bolton boss remains quietly confident about the way his side has started the season.
Evatt has backed a relatively slender but multi-functional squad to stay in contention for a top two spot and says the success of the team will hinge on maintaining competitiveness between the players in his starting XI and those who enter games from the bench.
The impact of substitutes – termed ‘finishers’ within the Wanderers camp – has come under scrutiny in recent weeks as the Whites are one of only five teams in the division who have not scored after the 75th minute of a league game this season – the others being Saturday’s opponents Reading, Charlton, Cheltenham and Shrewsbury.
That has bucked the trend set in the previous two seasons at this level, where Bolton outscored any other club with 43 goals added in the same time period.
Focus has inevitably shifted towards the impact of replacements, and Evatt believes the change in rules – which now allow five subs to be made – has given those players an extra responsibility to stay sharp.
“Coming off the bench isn’t easy and we have changed the terminology within the group from substitutes to finishers because that is how we see it now,” he told The Bolton News.
“I want the players to be involved and engaged in games from minute one and when it is their turn to come on and finish the game – whatever that looks like, getting us over the line, getting us a goal, adding to the tally – then that is their duty. They have to make sure they are fully focussed and ready to come on to make the impact we need them to make.”
Wanderers have been comfortably in front in games against the likes of Lincoln, Cheltenham and Fleetwood but Evatt says the changes he made in the last game against Derby were more to protect three points than to chase down more goals.
Even striker Cameron Jerome was brought on with one eye on the aerial threats the Rams offered from set pieces, and the manager says this should be kept in mind.
“Impacting off the bench isn’t easy – we have done it a lot but often in games where we have all the momentum and teams are trying to hang on,” he said.
“The way the team has developed and evolved over the last 12 months, and in particular this season, games have been petering out and it is harder for them to press, or they are coming on to survive like they did against Derby, winning headers in the box, winning duels.
“It has been different this season and I think when we have changed things and the game has been over it has been tough to keep the same intensity and mindset to go and get more goals.
“Against Derby was a bit of an anomaly because we’d tried to make changes based around defending the late chaotic set play scenarios that we kind of knew were coming. We tried to get as many big markers on the pitch as possible to deal with it. I thought Cameron was excellent coming on to do that.
“If we’d have got the third sooner it may have changed things but that was what we were thinking at the point we made the changes.”
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