Home
Penalty shoot-out hero Luke Southwood should not be considered as ‘back-up’ at Bolton Wanderers, says Ian Evatt.
The Bolton boss watched his summer signing make two crucial saves against Mansfield Town to help his side through to the second round of the Carabao Cup, just days after Nathan Baxter had grabbed the headlines with a match-winning display at Leyton Orient.
Southwood had been first choice keeper at Cheltenham Town for the previous two seasons, also featuring prominently for Reading in the Championship, and Evatt feels he has already added a competitive edge to the goalkeeping department.
“I don’t think Luke sees himself as second choice – he sees it as competitive and wants to show everyone how good he can be, which is only good for Nathan,” he said.
“Nathan has been brilliant for us and he was excellent on Saturday but he also needs to be pushed, so Luke has come to the club to do that.
“I don’t think he has the attitude to come here as a number two, he wants to compete for the number one spot and that can only bode well for us.”
Wanderers host Wrexham on Sunday with a bumper crowd expected at the Toughsheet Stadium. Nearly 24,000 tickets have already been sold for the game, which will also be screened live on Sky Sports.
Evatt made nine changes for the Mansfield game and also substituted captain Ricardo Santos for Eoin Toal at half time to keep the pair fresh for League One. And while the performance over 90 minutes was not as fluid as he might have hoped, he feels the game time has helped move some of his players closer to a starting spot.
“I already had a team in mind for Sunday and that really hasn’t changed,” he said. “Obviously there are players who are going to improve as we go along, especially in this month, ones who have just joined us, fitness issues during pre-season so some need minutes. We are going to improve, there’s no doubt about that.
“You can integrate one or two but when you change nine there are going to be problems.
“I thought second half we were a lot better and probably deserved to win the game.”
George Johnston also played his first competitive action for Wanderers since the play-off semi-final in May 2023. The defender missed the whole of last season because of a cruciate ligament injury but is now pushing hard for regular football once again.
“I thought that was better,” Evatt said. “In pre-season I did see some rustiness and that is absolutely understandable.
“We have had to really manage expectations, his own and the outside expectation. Again, he will improve from that because it was a lot more like him, especially second half.
“He was aggressive in duels, there were some good passes, so that was a positive. We will see how he recovers from that and analyse how he does on Sunday.”
Source