Home
Wanderers’ newfound potency at set pieces is coming at a cost to Ian Evatt’s festive spirit.
Every time Bolton score from a set piece, the coaching staff put money from the fine kitty into the players’ Christmas party fund. The opposite applies whenever a goal is conceded.
In league football, the balance is currently six to four in the players’ favour – but the cup competitions have brought several more bonuses to the first team’s treasure chest, including goals for Ricardo Santos and Will Forrester in the 4-0 win against Solihull Moors.
“It is costing me a lot of money, I can tell you that! I’ve nearly had to cancel the staff Christmas do,” Evatt joked after the game.
“They are important, and we should have had a penalty from one set piece in the first half. We changed the one we scored at Charlton – we thought maybe they would see that one, think it was on, but we played one pass fewer and got Randell in behind. It was a penalty, which was disappointing.”
Referee Scott Simpson gave one penalty – Dion Charles’s effort saved by Tommy Simkin – but turned down two other strong shouts in the last couple of minutes from Cameron Jerome and Carlos Mendes Gomes.
Evatt could afford to feel charitable, given the margin of victory, but he was disappointed to see Moors’ skipper Jamey Osbourne given a second yellow card late in the game for a foul on Charles.
“Cam, Carlos, they should have been penalties, but we can’t control it. Refereeing isn’t an easy thing to do,” he said. “We’ll let him off the hook.
“Their sending off – he did rake down the back of his Achilles, you can see the damage on Dion, but could we have managed that differently at that stage of the game? Definitely. Do I like to see managers get booked? No. Again, just manage it differently at 4-0 in the 90-something minute, we can use a little bit more common sense.”
Evatt made five changes to the team that beat Charlton the previous weekend, and brought skipper Santos off at half time for Eoin Toal.
“It was always planned,” he said of the substitution. “Rico missed a period of time, so we are getting him back to where he should be. Toally has played international football, so we wanted to manage those two a little bit, give then both 45 minutes, then the ones who have played a lot – Josh Sheehan, Josh Dacres-Cogley, Victor Adeboyejo, Dion Charles, it was great to give them a rest.
“The best thing is that it doesn’t necessarily weaken us. The players we bring in can do the job really well. I was delighted with how it is going.
Charles did eventually grab an 11th goal of the season, firing home Bolton’s fourth of the day in the 86th minute, and Evatt reckons he will quickly brush off the missed spot kick.
“We’ll back him,” he said. “He’ll score the next one if we got one of Tuesday night, these things just happen.
“He reset really quickly and scored a good goal.”
Source