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Wanderers can follow Luton Town’s blueprint and find a way to the top by doing things “their way” insists Ian Evatt.
Today’s FA Cup opponents reached the Premier League this season with the fourth-lowest playing budget of any side in the Championship last season.
And despite boasting the lowest wage bill of any of the elite clubs, they have already shown signs under Rob Edwards that they could beat the odds and avoid relegation.
Evatt is determined to lead Bolton to promotion this year and sees no reason why the current owners, Football Ventures, cannot help the club take the next step.
The club remains reliant on owner input and concerns have been voiced around the fanbase on whether Wanderers will have the requisite spending power to be competitive at the next level – one which is notorious for having an unsustainable economy.
Luton bucked the trend – and Evatt sees no reason why his club cannot follow suit.
“Why not? I have to say that this ownership group has never said ‘no’ to me, they have always provided everything I feel that we need,” he told The Bolton News.
“I don’t want to be the manager that spends the most money and does things the same way as other clubs have done, that typical thing where spending money means success. It is not always the case, because if it were, whoever spent the most money at the start of the season might as well just take the trophy home. It doesn’t work like that and we want to be different.
“We want to make sure we have more bang for our buck, so to speak, and there are other ways of improving and that doesn’t just mean finance into players. It can be the club structure, the staff, the team you build off the field – you guys are fully aware now of Chris Markham and his team of analysts, who are doing some fantastic recruitment work.
“They have got us to the stage now where the players we bring in are now real financial assets and all of that team is part of that development.”
Evatt has been given a window into Luton’s journey via his former Blackpool team-mate, Rob Edwards, who was part of Ian Holloway’s side that gained promotion to the top flight in 2010 with a similarly slim budget.
He said: “For me, there is a lot of resemblance to the Blackpool team which got to the Premier League because they were huge underdogs, nobody even gave them a chance, but also the way their recruitment has been, it is smart, strategic, they have always had a plan and they have stuck to it. They have not been willing to rip the budget up and gamble, they have done it all smartly.
“I do think it is a great football club for us to look at in terms of what they have done. They will say the tough part now is to stay and maintain it but they have put themselves in a very strong position to do it.
“I have been given quite a good insight into that club with Rob, and he is doing a great job, really enjoying being there.
“It is a blueprint for us to follow. The turnover of players here has been massive, as it has needed to be, and it was the same for Luton. They have faced some of the same challenges.”
Wanderers have played down the amount of business they will do in the January transfer window, with Evatt “quietly confident” he will also be able to keep his squad together this month to continue a promotion push.
A striker could still be on the cards, with Dan Nlundulu unlikely to be back in action until April at the earliest after an operation on a torn hamstring.
“Potentially, but as I said, whatever we do in whatever position we do it, the signing must be additive to what we have already got. It needs to be at a level where we are all comfortable,” Evatt said.
“You can end up overpaying. We have had some success in the January window from being a bit more proactive and all the work we have done has put us in a strong place.
“We know what we need to do, and also that we are in a strong position as regards to bringing in our own, and that is as good as it gets.”
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