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Ian Evatt says he will take criticism for Saturday’s heavy defeat at Stockport County on the chin and encourage his players to “keep walking forward” to their next serious test against Blackpool.
Confident that he has both the support of the Wanderers board and his dressing room, the Bolton boss will be in the dugout tonight as his side host Fleetwood Town in their final Bristol Street Motors Trophy group fixture.
The competition has been shunted down the priority list this season, but a win would guarantee safe passage to the knockout stages, and Evatt insists the team he names at the Toughsheet Stadium will be competitive.
The real judgement will come after the international break against Evatt’s former club Blackpool and having called into question the attitude and professionalism of some of his players following the defeat at Edgeley Park, he has challenged them to raise standards over the coming week to ensure they get back on a winning run.
“It is my job and the staff’s job that we constantly strive for the best and we hold the players accountable and we don’t feel they are reaching those standards,” he told The Bolton News.
“We cannot be there all of the time, and there comes a time where players have to hold players accountable. It can’t just be my voice all the time, or the staff’s voice all the time, because it just becomes diluted and it doesn’t have the same power.
“The players know what’s right and wrong, and sometimes as a group when things have been going relatively well, it can become easy to lose sight of what makes things go well.
“I have said this to the players so I am sure they won’t mind me sharing it, but the time to remind ourselves of the standards and levels we need to hit are when times are good, not when we have those huge bumps in the road like we did on Saturday.
“It is easy after that game to sit and say ‘we came away from X, Y, Z,’ and we didn’t do this and that as a unit. That reminder has to come when things are going well because then you avoid those drops.
“I can’t say categorically it is because of that, or whether it is because training sessions last week were difficult because of the illness in the camp. I am not trying to make excuses, I am trying to find a reason. Nobody expected that, it was a complete shock to all of us.
“It is unacceptable and we have to try and make sure that doesn’t happen again. All the critique I’ll get, I’m strong enough to take it. I will keep walking forwards and focus on what I need to do, get this team to where I think it can get to.
“We could have gone fourth with a win on Saturday, all is not lost, but the manner of the result heightens and escalates the criticism we have faced. As a group we have to take it, own it and march forwards.
“We know it’s a part of the job in football, whether it’s right or wrong isn’t an argument for now. But we have to be better, and that’s all everyone wants here, it’s just to keep getting better.”
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