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Even a first goal of the season couldn’t prevent Eoin Toal from walking off the pitch at Northampton Town shaking his head.
For while Ian Evatt’s side had been electric in a swampy Sixfields for 90 minutes, conceding two sloppy late goals put a dampener on what had been a hugely encouraging result.
Toal had scored the third of the night – his first since the play-off semi-final against Barnsley in May – at which point in time the 663 travelling Bolton fans were screaming for more.
“It’s annoying,” Toal complained. “As a defensive player I can’t be happy with that, and I’m sure we’ll go in and look at what went wrong at the end there because we can’t be doing that.
“We played really well, I think, for 90 minutes but they were just silly goals to give away at the end and we need to improve on that. We need to hold on to that clean sheet and see the game out properly, we know that. It’s something the whole defensive unit can work on now.”
Late aberrations aside, Bolton had put in their most complete performance of the League One season to date at Northampton, scoring a few eye-catching goals.
It is all a far cry to the start of last month, where pressure seemed to be mounting on manager Ian Evatt and his players to show they were not carrying a Wembley hangover and that the money invested over the summer had not been mis-spent.
Toal says the criticism was fair but that the team now need to move on and build their season.
“Look, everyone knows we didn’t start well this season, at all, and we weren’t playing to our usual standards – and that’s everyone,” he said.
“But the last three games have been really positive, one home win and two away from home, so we’ll take that on to Saturday now. I think it has shown some character to turn that around.
“Everyone is entitled to an opinion, all we can do is control what’s in our dressing room. I think the last three games we have shown more, especially away from home, so we can start taking some positives.
“I don’t think there has been any big change, it’s just that individually and collectively we are playing to our standard now. We are better than we showed in that first few games and everyone had a right to have a go.
“We have to put that behind us now and move on to Saturday. It’s still early days.”
Slight doubts had been cast over Tuesday night’s game after torrential rain in the Northamptonshire area, which sparked flood warnings and meant the match officials had to make regular checks in the hours leading up to kick off to see how the pitch was draining.
“Down the sides was a bit harder but I thought we dealt with the conditions really well,” Toal said. “The first two goals were brilliant. Fast play, and when we do that we’re hard to play against.”
Toal’s goal was not necessarily the most picturesque of the bunch, the Northern Irishman finding himself unmarked at the far post after a corner, but getting the ball over the line was not a straightforward exercise.
“I don’t know what happened,” he smiled. “I went to head it but then with the wind it just dropped dead and hit my knee. They all count.
“We had worked on it in training. Trying to free me up and it was a great ball from Josh Sheehan. I was just happy to get on the scoresheet.
“I want to add goals to help the team. It came at a good time as well because it put the game to bed, really.
“It’s all about the team, though, I don’t worry about things individually.”
Toal was also impressed that so many Wanderers fans made the trip, which was the club’s third in six days after previous visits to Arsenal and Crawley.
“We were talking about it before, and it’s mad,” he said of some supporters, who have travelled more than 1,100 miles inside a week.
“To go to Arsenal, back up, Crawley, back up, then down here, fair play to them. They are fantastic.
“It will be nice to go back home now on Saturday and play Shrewsbury, and hopefully we can get the same sort of result and give everyone something to cheer about.”
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