Home
It was not long ago that administration was staring Bolton square in the face – but then the story changed
James Ducker, Northern Football Correspondent 11 December 2023 • 8:00am
Ian Evatt is smiling. “We do still have one or two moans and groans from the sides, the odd ‘get it forward’ shout,” the Bolton Wanderers manager says as he playfully recalls an incident at home to Exeter City just over a fortnight ago. Bolton were 7-0 up after the latest exhibition of tiki-taka football from the most progressive, expansive team in League One when captain Ricardo Santos got jeered for checking a run on the halfway line rather than trying to drive forward deep into stoppage time. “They were ironic, I think!” Evatt adds, laughing. “All in good spirit!”
There was a time not too long ago when, with Bolton on the brink of going bust under an asset-stripping former owner, the chants at the Toughsheet Community Stadium were only of the dark, despairing kind. But a great renaissance story is unfolding in the foothills of the West Pennine Moors and, on Monday night when first meets second in League One, a wider audience will get a glimpse of what Evatt likes to call “Bolton Wanderers 2.0”.
Beat Portsmouth at Fratton Park in front of the Sky Sports cameras and they will go top and for the man whose old Barrow team earned the moniker “Barrowcelona” for the way they won promotion from the National League in 2020, it is a chance to showcase his latest arresting project.
After an awful period on and off the pitch, there is joy once again at Bolton Credit: Getty Images/Andrew Kearns
“We know it’s going to be our toughest test yet so we’re hoping we can execute a really good performance where the whole nation tunes in to see what Bolton Wanderers are now about,” Evatt says.
Bolton’s emergence from the depths of despair, when administration felt a more frequent occurrence than victories and oblivion threatened, and the foot of League Two to within clear sight of the Championship is a triumph for the work of Evatt, chair Sharon Brittan, sporting director Chris Markham, chief executive Neil Hart and everyone around them. Almost 25,000 were in the ground to watch Bolton beat Blackpool last month and, if the publicity shy, inspiring Brittan – “the best owner in football”, according to Evatt – has helped reconnect the club with fans and the community off the pitch, then the manager has got them revelling in the bewitching entertainment on it.
‘Pep the biggest influence’
Ian Evatt is smiling. “We do still have one or two moans and groans from the sides, the odd ‘get it forward’ shout,” the Bolton Wanderers manager says as he playfully recalls an incident at home to Exeter City just over a fortnight ago. Bolton were 7-0 up after the latest exhibition of tiki-taka football from the most progressive, expansive team in League One when captain Ricardo Santos got jeered for checking a run on the halfway line rather than trying to drive forward deep into stoppage time. “They were ironic, I think!” Evatt adds, laughing. “All in good spirit!”
There was a time not too long ago when, with Bolton on the brink of going bust under an asset-stripping former owner, the chants at the Toughsheet Community Stadium were only of the dark, despairing kind. But a great renaissance story is unfolding in the foothills of the West Pennine Moors and, on Monday night when first meets second in League One, a wider audience will get a glimpse of what Evatt likes to call “Bolton Wanderers 2.0”.
Beat Portsmouth at Fratton Park in front of the Sky Sports cameras and they will go top and for the man whose old Barrow team earned the moniker “Barrowcelona” for the way they won promotion from the National League in 2020, it is a chance to showcase his latest arresting project.
After an awful period on and off the pitch, there is joy once again at Bolton Credit: Getty Images/Andrew Kearns
“We know it’s going to be our toughest test yet so we’re hoping we can execute a really good performance where the whole nation tunes in to see what Bolton Wanderers are now about,” Evatt says.
Bolton’s emergence from the depths of despair, when administration felt a more frequent occurrence than victories and oblivion threatened, and the foot of League Two to within clear sight of the Championship is a triumph for the work of Evatt, chair Sharon Brittan, sporting director Chris Markham, chief executive Neil Hart and everyone around them. Almost 25,000 were in the ground to watch Bolton beat Blackpool last month and, if the publicity shy, inspiring Brittan – “the best owner in football”, according to Evatt – has helped reconnect the club with fans and the community off the pitch, then the manager has got them revelling in the bewitching entertainment on it.
‘Pep the biggest influence’
Evatt’s Bolton are a bold, brave, attacking construct firmly in the Pep Guardiola mould who play out from the back and, in his words, want to “dominate every phase of the game, with and without the ball and in transition”.
An avid reader and keen follower of American sports, Evatt draws inspiration from many areas and does not mind admitting he prefers being a manager and coach than a player. One of those inspirations is Bill Walsh, the pioneering former head coach of the great San Francisco 49ers NFL side of the 1980s who popularised the so-called West Coast offence, which placed greater emphasis on passing than running.
Walsh’s seminal book, The Score Takes Care Of Itself, was prominent in Evatt’s mind when creating what he calls a “commitment to excellence piece” that clearly documented to staff and players alike “what the new 2.0 Bolton Wanderers is going to stand for”.
Close friends with another upwardly mobile manager, Rob Edwards at Luton Town, the pair are often on the phone exchanging ideas, although one suspects that will not be the case in the build-up to next month’s FA Cup third-round tie between the teams. He is still in contact with his old manager at Blackpool, Ian Holloway, under whom he played in the Premier League and who is “the biggest influence on me in terms of how important the culture and environment is at a football club”. “That’s the biggest undervalued tool you can build for nothing,” Evatt adds, and he and Brittan have certainly done that at Bolton.
Evatt is also a big fan of Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi and his methods and, much like the Italian, it is not uncommon to find him drilling his Bolton players for hours on the training ground or through video analysis on the granular details of a finely tuned playing structure.
Yet Evatt, still only 42 but now the 10th longest-serving manager in England, says no one has shaped his ideas or philosophy quite like Guardiola. “Pep has been the biggest influence because, for me, he’s changed the game,” Evatt explains. “But it’s not about trying to recreate what Man City are, it’s about taking that information and applying it to your own team. As coaches, you’re like a magpie. You take little bits from everyone and implement that into your own ideas and philosophies. What I love about Pep is he’s constantly evolving. Every season there’s something different because he’s always trying to get better and I think that’s the mindset you have to have.”
Evatt contributed to a recent documentary about how Guardiola has helped to reshape thinking in English football and, while he is yet to meet the man himself, he hopes to “one day get City in a cup tie or get to where he is and I can ask him the questions I have”.
‘A chip on the shoulder’
On the subject of documentaries, the latest episode of the “Born to be a Wanderer” series charting the club’s reawakening aired on Sunday and, when you think that there has been a turnover of well over 100 players since Evatt first stepped foot into the club 3-and-a-half years ago, the playing identity he has forged is remarkable.
Evatt had sifted through literally hundreds of CVs when Bolton were searching for a new recruitment chief in those early days of his reign and rejected all of them. They were all of the “old school football” variety, as Evatt puts it. But a meeting with Markham, then the Football Association’s head of insights, changed everything and together they have formed a potent alliance. Data-led performance and recruitment analysis was non-existent at Bolton before Markham came on board and helped to spearhead a revolution at the club.
Evatt’s feel for an individual aligned to data-informed recruitment has been a winning combination. Take centre forward Dion Charles, signed from Accrington Stanley and Bolton’s top scorer who is hoping to become the club’s first player since John McGinley in 1996-97 to score 30 goals in a campaign. The data showed Charles’ pressing and work off the ball would sit perfectly with Evatt’s needs but, on a personal level, the manager was struck by his “desire and hunger”. “There’s almost a chip on his shoulder,” Evatt said. “Because he’s had that non-league journey, he had a point to prove. He’s just so aggressive with everything he does.”
Much like Jamie Vardy was? “Exactly that, really similar,” Evatt adds. “I remember as a Blackpool player drawing Fleetwood in the FA Cup when they were a non-league team and Jamie Vardy was playing in that game for them. It was a local derby and I’d bumped into Vardy in Blackpool town centre beforehand and he was so brash.
“I was a Premier League/Championship player at the time and he came up to me and said, ‘I can’t wait to run in behind you next week’. Dion has that same attitude - no fear.”
Three players have been with Evatt from the beginning - Santos, fellow defender Gethin Jones and midfielder George Thomason - and all have been central to the culture the manager has strived to create. Santos’ story is typical of Bolton’s resurgence. “He’ll admit himself, he was about three weeks away from being an Amazon driver in the pandemic,” Evatt says. “We took a chance on him, brought him up and he’s just progressed so much.”
Evatt encourages his players to stay off social media, which he describes as a “toxic mess”. “I’ve had adversity myself,” he says. “I’ve evolved as a person throughout my years and I dread to think what I’d have been like with social media in my playing days.”
One of Evatt’s missions was to get kids back in Bolton kits again “instead of your Uniteds, Citys and everyone else” but an upside of playing such attractive football is the club’s appeal to Premier League neighbours looking for the right environment for their budding young talents. England Under-21 goalkeeper James Trafford, now at Burnley in the Premier League, impressed on loan at Bolton last season, as did Liverpool’s Conor Bradley. Shola Shoretire was also on loan from Manchester United and this season Brentford considered Bolton the ideal place for midfielder Paris Maghoma to develop.
All of this might make you think Evatt will remain in the game for as long as it will have him - and there was a time when he thought that himself - but his perspective has changed. “I don’t want to do this forever,” he says, candidly. “I want to be really successful and get to as high as I can but then I want to ‘do life’ so to speak. I like the idea of a sabbatical on my terms, not when I’ve been fired - to walk away when things are good, to reset.
“And I also like the idea of walking away full stop. I’m nowhere near that place right now but I think I will get to a place where I can just enjoy the rest of my life.”
Until then, Evatt’s lofty ambitions for Bolton burn brightly.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
James Ducker, Northern Football Correspondent 11 December 2023 • 8:00am
Ian Evatt is smiling. “We do still have one or two moans and groans from the sides, the odd ‘get it forward’ shout,” the Bolton Wanderers manager says as he playfully recalls an incident at home to Exeter City just over a fortnight ago. Bolton were 7-0 up after the latest exhibition of tiki-taka football from the most progressive, expansive team in League One when captain Ricardo Santos got jeered for checking a run on the halfway line rather than trying to drive forward deep into stoppage time. “They were ironic, I think!” Evatt adds, laughing. “All in good spirit!”
There was a time not too long ago when, with Bolton on the brink of going bust under an asset-stripping former owner, the chants at the Toughsheet Community Stadium were only of the dark, despairing kind. But a great renaissance story is unfolding in the foothills of the West Pennine Moors and, on Monday night when first meets second in League One, a wider audience will get a glimpse of what Evatt likes to call “Bolton Wanderers 2.0”.
Beat Portsmouth at Fratton Park in front of the Sky Sports cameras and they will go top and for the man whose old Barrow team earned the moniker “Barrowcelona” for the way they won promotion from the National League in 2020, it is a chance to showcase his latest arresting project.
After an awful period on and off the pitch, there is joy once again at Bolton Credit: Getty Images/Andrew Kearns
“We know it’s going to be our toughest test yet so we’re hoping we can execute a really good performance where the whole nation tunes in to see what Bolton Wanderers are now about,” Evatt says.
Bolton’s emergence from the depths of despair, when administration felt a more frequent occurrence than victories and oblivion threatened, and the foot of League Two to within clear sight of the Championship is a triumph for the work of Evatt, chair Sharon Brittan, sporting director Chris Markham, chief executive Neil Hart and everyone around them. Almost 25,000 were in the ground to watch Bolton beat Blackpool last month and, if the publicity shy, inspiring Brittan – “the best owner in football”, according to Evatt – has helped reconnect the club with fans and the community off the pitch, then the manager has got them revelling in the bewitching entertainment on it.
‘Pep the biggest influence’
Ian Evatt is smiling. “We do still have one or two moans and groans from the sides, the odd ‘get it forward’ shout,” the Bolton Wanderers manager says as he playfully recalls an incident at home to Exeter City just over a fortnight ago. Bolton were 7-0 up after the latest exhibition of tiki-taka football from the most progressive, expansive team in League One when captain Ricardo Santos got jeered for checking a run on the halfway line rather than trying to drive forward deep into stoppage time. “They were ironic, I think!” Evatt adds, laughing. “All in good spirit!”
There was a time not too long ago when, with Bolton on the brink of going bust under an asset-stripping former owner, the chants at the Toughsheet Community Stadium were only of the dark, despairing kind. But a great renaissance story is unfolding in the foothills of the West Pennine Moors and, on Monday night when first meets second in League One, a wider audience will get a glimpse of what Evatt likes to call “Bolton Wanderers 2.0”.
Beat Portsmouth at Fratton Park in front of the Sky Sports cameras and they will go top and for the man whose old Barrow team earned the moniker “Barrowcelona” for the way they won promotion from the National League in 2020, it is a chance to showcase his latest arresting project.
After an awful period on and off the pitch, there is joy once again at Bolton Credit: Getty Images/Andrew Kearns
“We know it’s going to be our toughest test yet so we’re hoping we can execute a really good performance where the whole nation tunes in to see what Bolton Wanderers are now about,” Evatt says.
Bolton’s emergence from the depths of despair, when administration felt a more frequent occurrence than victories and oblivion threatened, and the foot of League Two to within clear sight of the Championship is a triumph for the work of Evatt, chair Sharon Brittan, sporting director Chris Markham, chief executive Neil Hart and everyone around them. Almost 25,000 were in the ground to watch Bolton beat Blackpool last month and, if the publicity shy, inspiring Brittan – “the best owner in football”, according to Evatt – has helped reconnect the club with fans and the community off the pitch, then the manager has got them revelling in the bewitching entertainment on it.
‘Pep the biggest influence’
Evatt’s Bolton are a bold, brave, attacking construct firmly in the Pep Guardiola mould who play out from the back and, in his words, want to “dominate every phase of the game, with and without the ball and in transition”.
An avid reader and keen follower of American sports, Evatt draws inspiration from many areas and does not mind admitting he prefers being a manager and coach than a player. One of those inspirations is Bill Walsh, the pioneering former head coach of the great San Francisco 49ers NFL side of the 1980s who popularised the so-called West Coast offence, which placed greater emphasis on passing than running.
Walsh’s seminal book, The Score Takes Care Of Itself, was prominent in Evatt’s mind when creating what he calls a “commitment to excellence piece” that clearly documented to staff and players alike “what the new 2.0 Bolton Wanderers is going to stand for”.
Close friends with another upwardly mobile manager, Rob Edwards at Luton Town, the pair are often on the phone exchanging ideas, although one suspects that will not be the case in the build-up to next month’s FA Cup third-round tie between the teams. He is still in contact with his old manager at Blackpool, Ian Holloway, under whom he played in the Premier League and who is “the biggest influence on me in terms of how important the culture and environment is at a football club”. “That’s the biggest undervalued tool you can build for nothing,” Evatt adds, and he and Brittan have certainly done that at Bolton.
Evatt is also a big fan of Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi and his methods and, much like the Italian, it is not uncommon to find him drilling his Bolton players for hours on the training ground or through video analysis on the granular details of a finely tuned playing structure.
Yet Evatt, still only 42 but now the 10th longest-serving manager in England, says no one has shaped his ideas or philosophy quite like Guardiola. “Pep has been the biggest influence because, for me, he’s changed the game,” Evatt explains. “But it’s not about trying to recreate what Man City are, it’s about taking that information and applying it to your own team. As coaches, you’re like a magpie. You take little bits from everyone and implement that into your own ideas and philosophies. What I love about Pep is he’s constantly evolving. Every season there’s something different because he’s always trying to get better and I think that’s the mindset you have to have.”
Evatt contributed to a recent documentary about how Guardiola has helped to reshape thinking in English football and, while he is yet to meet the man himself, he hopes to “one day get City in a cup tie or get to where he is and I can ask him the questions I have”.
‘A chip on the shoulder’
On the subject of documentaries, the latest episode of the “Born to be a Wanderer” series charting the club’s reawakening aired on Sunday and, when you think that there has been a turnover of well over 100 players since Evatt first stepped foot into the club 3-and-a-half years ago, the playing identity he has forged is remarkable.
Evatt had sifted through literally hundreds of CVs when Bolton were searching for a new recruitment chief in those early days of his reign and rejected all of them. They were all of the “old school football” variety, as Evatt puts it. But a meeting with Markham, then the Football Association’s head of insights, changed everything and together they have formed a potent alliance. Data-led performance and recruitment analysis was non-existent at Bolton before Markham came on board and helped to spearhead a revolution at the club.
Evatt’s feel for an individual aligned to data-informed recruitment has been a winning combination. Take centre forward Dion Charles, signed from Accrington Stanley and Bolton’s top scorer who is hoping to become the club’s first player since John McGinley in 1996-97 to score 30 goals in a campaign. The data showed Charles’ pressing and work off the ball would sit perfectly with Evatt’s needs but, on a personal level, the manager was struck by his “desire and hunger”. “There’s almost a chip on his shoulder,” Evatt said. “Because he’s had that non-league journey, he had a point to prove. He’s just so aggressive with everything he does.”
Much like Jamie Vardy was? “Exactly that, really similar,” Evatt adds. “I remember as a Blackpool player drawing Fleetwood in the FA Cup when they were a non-league team and Jamie Vardy was playing in that game for them. It was a local derby and I’d bumped into Vardy in Blackpool town centre beforehand and he was so brash.
“I was a Premier League/Championship player at the time and he came up to me and said, ‘I can’t wait to run in behind you next week’. Dion has that same attitude - no fear.”
Three players have been with Evatt from the beginning - Santos, fellow defender Gethin Jones and midfielder George Thomason - and all have been central to the culture the manager has strived to create. Santos’ story is typical of Bolton’s resurgence. “He’ll admit himself, he was about three weeks away from being an Amazon driver in the pandemic,” Evatt says. “We took a chance on him, brought him up and he’s just progressed so much.”
Evatt encourages his players to stay off social media, which he describes as a “toxic mess”. “I’ve had adversity myself,” he says. “I’ve evolved as a person throughout my years and I dread to think what I’d have been like with social media in my playing days.”
One of Evatt’s missions was to get kids back in Bolton kits again “instead of your Uniteds, Citys and everyone else” but an upside of playing such attractive football is the club’s appeal to Premier League neighbours looking for the right environment for their budding young talents. England Under-21 goalkeeper James Trafford, now at Burnley in the Premier League, impressed on loan at Bolton last season, as did Liverpool’s Conor Bradley. Shola Shoretire was also on loan from Manchester United and this season Brentford considered Bolton the ideal place for midfielder Paris Maghoma to develop.
All of this might make you think Evatt will remain in the game for as long as it will have him - and there was a time when he thought that himself - but his perspective has changed. “I don’t want to do this forever,” he says, candidly. “I want to be really successful and get to as high as I can but then I want to ‘do life’ so to speak. I like the idea of a sabbatical on my terms, not when I’ve been fired - to walk away when things are good, to reset.
“And I also like the idea of walking away full stop. I’m nowhere near that place right now but I think I will get to a place where I can just enjoy the rest of my life.”
Until then, Evatt’s lofty ambitions for Bolton burn brightly.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]