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Ian Evatt has confidence that Dion Charles will soon be back among the goals at Wanderers.
The Northern Ireland international has now gone 10 games since netting the last of his 17 strikes in all competitions – his last coming against Luton Town in January.
Charles missed several weeks with a knee injury but is now back available and expected to start on the final game of the regular season at Peterborough United.
The Wanderers hitman has fond memories of the Weston Homes Stadium, having claimed a hat-trick there in last season’s 5-0 win, with Ricardo Santos bagging the other two.
Evatt has no doubt Charles will soon be in that sort of form again.
“He is a goal-scorer and he had some opportunities on Saturday that a sharper Dion Charles probably takes – but it was important we got him back for these two games to get him back to where he wants to be and where we need him to be.
“He is a confident lad and he isn’t over-thinking it. He knows he is going to get opportunities in this team and that it is down to him to take them. But it is also great that Aaron (Collins) is sharing that responsibility now – he has eight in 11 – and we have got goals all around the team because we can create from anywhere, which is something we worked hard on to develop this season.”
Saturday sees a meeting between the top two goal-scoring sides in the division, with Wanderers potentially needing a few more if they stand any chance of snatching second spot from Derby.
Evatt says he will be ready to make changes if the scores elsewhere dictate, but he has every faith that his side can create goalscoring opportunities wherever they play.
He said: “What we have tried to do this season is provide different types of threats and that is why we have become a more creative team, even though at times we know we should score more goals.
“Paris Maghoma’s ability to dribble from the centre of the pitch, Josh Dacres-Cogley’s ability to get in behind the opposition defence is exceptional. Aaron is a different type of striker to Dion and able to drop into pockets of space, drift wide and score from distance.
“George Thomason’s productivity has increased, we know Kyle Demspey can strike a ball, so can Aaron Morley, our set pieces have improved and Dion is just a predator, you give him chances and he will score. There has been improvement on chance creation this season and we did a lot of hard work on that in the summer.
“There has probably been some give and take and we have probably conceded a few more than we would have liked. There is some context behind it but we have to own it, and had we kept the same amount of clean sheets as we did last season we would have gone up.
“We have learned to create against all types of opposition.”
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