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Wanderers face a gargantuan task at Arsenal in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night – but Ian Evatt refuses to head to the capital simply to “shut up shop”.
A prestige third round tie at the Emirates is reward for victories against lesser lights Mansfield and Shrewsbury and comes just 64 hours before a crucial League One game at Crawley in League One on Saturday lunchtime.
The Gunners frustrated Premier League champions Manchester City for more than a half of football on Sunday with 10 men and were accused of employing the “dark arts” to try and hold on to their 2-1 lead, only succumbing in the 97th minute to John Stones’s equaliser.
But Evatt, whose side start as 18/1 outsiders, believes it would be counter-productive trying to change his own attacking gameplan for the occasion.
“Look, it is as hard a game as it can possibly be, possibly with the exception of Manchester City away,” he said. “But what a great opportunity. I don’t know how anyone else is viewing the game but I’m looking at it as a chance to go and learn about what it takes to be a top manager of a club with that stature and for the players to see what it is like to play at the highest level.
“We have zero expectation, which is different to how we feel every week in the league, nobody expects anything. We’ll try and form a plan which is probably different to how we’d go about things in the league, but it is great for the fans to have these experiences and hopefully we can make them proud.
“When you go down to 10 men at Manchester City, to come out with any sort of result is unbelievable. Maybe the way they went about it isn’t for everybody but as a coach and manager I have ultimate respect for it.
“They almost grabbed all three which would have been a borderline miracle, I think.
“But the issue for us in that it is such a quick turnaround and that style would be completely different to the way we are coached. We’ve only got one day, really, to formulate a new plan, which is virtually impossible.
“We just have to go out there and be the best version of us – press the same way, play the same way, and yes we’re trying to do it against one of the best teams in the world and might get punished for that but there’s no point doing something completely alien.
“Our best learnings will be trying to play against the best players around.”
Wanderers will be staying down south so that travel time to Crawley is minimised but the fact all League One games have been scheduled by Sky Sports for an early kick off does present issues for the manager.
“It does, given who we are playing against on Wednesday night. It isn’t good, it isn’t helpful, but what an experience. But we can’t complain.
“We know Saturday is the more important game but Wednesday is one we can go, learn and experience, so that’s very much our mindset going to Arsenal.
“It will be a completely different thing for our players because we are used to having the majority of possession, we are used to pressing aggressively, and it will be challenging for us to do either of those things. It is a completely different perspective of what playing against the best feels like, being a bit more sacrificial and seeing nowhere near as much of the ball will be alien to a lot of the lads but hopefully we can show some resilience.”
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