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Ian Evatt will make his final preparations for the play-off final today before saying to his Wembley-bound players: “It’s over to you!”
Wanderers will be in the capital today for a walk around the stadium, soon to be filled by around 70,000 expectant supporters.
Evatt has stuck to the same build-up he used to great success in 2023 for the Papa Johns Trophy final and after finishing third in the regular season, 10 points ahead of opponents Oxford United, knows his side are favourites to claim a place in the Championship next season.
But he knows there will also be a point on Saturday afternoon where, like the Bolton fans, he will be able to do little more than watch and hope his team can produce a winning performance.
There has been an overwhelmingly positive vibe around the Whites camp since their automatic promotion chase ended on the final day of the season at Peterborough United, and focus was switched to the play-offs.
“I think we are in a good place,” Evatt told The Bolton News. “We have good memories there, which can never be a bad thing.
“If we are not enjoying it then we are all doing the wrong thing, aren’t we?
“It is hard to get to these games, it is hard to achieve what we have achieved. We have to enjoy it because we have been in some dark places in the not-too-distant past.
“I have enjoyed it, personally, because this has been a great time to spend time on the grass, to coach the players and develop a gameplan which we can see come to life on Saturday.
“When Saturday comes, it is over to the players. They have to go out there and execute. My work is done, pretty much. There will be 30-odd thousand Bolton fans travelling in the hope we perform and we want to try and make them proud.”
Evatt knows his starting line-up and has offered his thoughts on how he thinks Oxford will approach the match.
Though ordinarily an attack-minded, possession-based team, the U’s showed a grittier, defensive side to their game in a two-legged win against Peterborough in the semi-finals.
The Bolton boss admits there may be decisions to be taken on-field once the whistle is blown.
“I have always got a team in my mind and how I want the game to progress, then what the changes look like,” he said. “But as we saw from the Barnsley game we went from a huge position of strength to squeaky bum time, as Pep now understands. And that was all within the space of 15 minutes.
“It can change quickly but ideally we have a plan. Football isn’t always ideal, so we have to be fluid.
“We finished third, so going into the play-offs we were the team that had achieved the most points during the regular season. Rightly, we became favourites and we have to embrace it.
“Oxford will fancy their chances as well. I think it will be a really good game, and they can produce one-off results, I know that from all the years I have been watching them.
“We have to do the best we can to get a result. There are no guarantees in football but if we perform well it gives us a great opportunity and that has to be our focus.”
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