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Wanderers face another agonising wait to see whether Eoin Toal will be cleared to play against Peterborough United this weekend.
The defender missed games against Burton Albion and Birmingham City after medical tests on a head injury sustained on international duty earlier this month.
Toal was initially hurt during a game against Belarus on October 12 but was then selected from the start against Bulgaria three days later, eventually leaving the pitch with dizziness.
Evatt expressed his frustration at the lack of clarity given by the Northern Ireland FA at the time, with Wanderers unsure whether he had officially been diagnosed with concussion when he returned to training.
FA guidelines (the Graduated Return to Play Programme) states that a period of three weeks may be necessary once a doctor has confirmed he is symptom free.
That leaves the centre-half’s involvement against Posh up in the air once again this weekend, with Evatt confirming his efforts to play him on Tuesday night had been turned down.
“Toally went as part of the protocol for concussion,” he told The Bolton News. “He went to see the neurologist on Monday and he wasn’t comfortable because of the two episodes with Northern Ireland. I am not happy with the way that was dealt with, but we are where we are with international football. We are hopeful he can pass to play on Saturday.”
Goalkeeper Nathan Baxter was also deemed “close but not close enough” by the Bolton boss, who is also concerned about a knee injury picked up by midfielder Kyle Dempsey at St Andrew’s.
Wanderers had hoped to freshen up their squad with a handful of players who had returned to training after the international break but Evatt has faced limited options over the last few games.
The likes of Klaidi Lolos and Will Forrester have made fleeting appearances but the Whites are still waiting on a return for Gethin Jones, Carlos Mendes Gomes and Jordi Osei-Tutu and have also lost George Thomason and Chris Forino for a number of weeks.
“As is our way we seem to be hard done by with injuries but with the players we have available we will make a plan for Peterborough to get the result we need,” Evatt said.
“They are an energetic side, it will be tough, but we did it away at Arsenal on a Wednesday and then played Saturday morning in a quick turnaround at Crawley and managed to get the right result. We have to believe we can do the same again.”
The Wanderers boss has faced backlash in some quarters for the team picked at Birmingham but he defended his decisions, arguing that the outcome would have been different had an 80th minute chance for John McAtee hit the back of the net.
“Everyone keeps saying we don’t have another plan and that we are not pragmatic enough in the big games but we had to be pragmatic – we’re missing our goalkeeper, we’re missing an international centre-back and our captain, which is the spine of our team,” he added.
“If we have that energy and intensity, in particular with Eoin and George, then perhaps we could have been more aggressive from the start but with the personnel we have available, we did what we could, we did what we thought would get us a result in this game. We almost got one.
“We would have preferred it to be 0-0 or for us to be ahead when John (McAtee) gets that chance, but we knew we would have to suffer at times, particularly in the first half. We also knew that if we were in the game we could get the lads on and be more adventurous when they tired a bit in that last half hour. We knew we would get opportunities, we just didn’t take them.”
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