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Wanderers will not take a backward step in the FA Cup against Luton Town tonight despite facing the fixtures mounting up in front of them.
Ian Evatt intends to pick his strongest possible line-up against the Premier League Hatters as they look to cause an upset and book another top-flight tie in the fourth round at either Crystal Palace or Everton.
The Whites earned a goalless draw at Kenilworth Road on January 7 becoming only the second club behind Tottenham to stop Luton scoring on their own pitch.
And having worked so hard to get a second shot, Evatt refuses to allow it to pass by.
“The league is the priority of course but we enter every competition to get as far as we possibly can,” he told The Bolton News. “That hasn’t changed.
“I am not going to sacrifice anything. We will give it our all and do our best to achieve what we want to achieve this season.
“You have to earn everything in this game and we will find that out over the next few months. I think this squad is capable of matching those targets, though, and we are viewing the FA Cup as a positive.
“It isn’t a luxury. We are in it to win.
“Taking part and all that, great, but I get my kicks from winning football matches, and I think the fans are the same.
“Is it possible we win the FA Cup? Unlikely. But we are going to give it all we can and that starts against Luton.”
Wanderers will pay tribute before the match to lifelong supporter Iain Purslow, who passed away after collapsing in the first half of Saturday’s League One game against Cheltenham Town.
The match was abandoned after 29 minutes, with players brought quickly off the pitch by the match referee Sunny Singh Gill.
Evatt said the decision to abandon the game was “out of his jurisdiction” but added that any thoughts of football on the day had taken a back seat as he and his players waited behind the scenes.
“The mood was sombre,” he said. “We are united as a football club, we feel like we are a family, and it was very sad to witness.
“But it is about nobody else other than the family which was affected, not us, and our thoughts and prayers are with those people, and no-one else.
“It wasn’t my call or down to me [abandoning the game]. My thoughts were solely with the family.
“Everything else that took place on Saturday is out of my jurisdiction. All we are about is losing one of our own, and it makes us very sad.
“I can’t emphasise enough that this isn’t about our players, it is only about that family and the hurt they are going through. They deserve respect, they deserve to mourn and be left alone, and we will do all we can to pay our respects. There is no better way to do that than performing well against Luton.”
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