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Wanderers can win their quest for forgiveness if they bounce back with a winning run after the international break, says Ian Evatt.
Saturday’s heavy defeat at Stockport County piled major pressure on the Bolton boss, and though his players demanded that they carry the can for the defeat, many fans are now demanding change at the top.
Evatt has come under fire before during more than four years in the Wanderers dugout, but supporters’ unhappiness has never been as vocal.
He remains defiant, however, that his team can change the mood. And after registering an unconvincing win against Fleetwood Town in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy on Tuesday night, he is now looking for his squad to galvanise before they return to the pitch against Blackpool a week on Saturday.
“It was lose-lose,” he said of the Fleetwood game, won with two goals from Aaron Collins. “We can’t keep everybody happy. At the moment it doesn’t seem like I can keep anybody happy, but we will do our best to keep grinding on.
“This group, and I, have always found a way to respond, to turn things around.
“We must remember that things are not all that bad. Yes, we lost a game on Saturday which hurt us all, in a manner which hurt us all, but we have an opportunity to put it right. We have some big local games coming up and if we can manage to do the right thing, get the right results and get ourselves back among the leading pack – and I think we can with the games coming up – then hopefully we will be forgiven.
“But, as I say, we are resilient. I am resilient. And we will do everything we can to put this right.”
Evatt drew some encouragement from the win against Fleetwood, if only in a full debut for academy product Sonny Sharpes-Ahmed, or a first full 90 minutes of the season for Gethin Jones.
A handful of players who had been involved in the 5-0 hammering at Edgeley Park also got a chance to get the game out of their system, and the Bolton boss admitted it had been an awkward fixture for all involved.
“It is an incredibly difficult thing to do, to come back from the lows of Saturday so quickly, and win a game – it doesn’t matter who you are playing against,” he said.
“Fleetwood have just been relegated from League One, they are not a million miles away from the top of League Two, and we knew they would come with almost their full-strength team motivated by knowing if they could win, they would be through.
“It was a huge banana skin and a tough challenge but, as always, the players responded the right way. They had the right attitude.
“Was it amazing to watch? No. There were some thing to like and some not to like. But I was most impressed with the resilience and the attitude they showed post-Saturday.”
The draw for the second round of the Bristol Street Motors Trophy will take place at the end of the month, after the final group game between Rotherham United and Bradford City is concluded.
Wanderers will take on one of the second-placed teams on the week commencing December 9, which currently include Tranmere, Port Vale, Wigan, Crewe, Huddersfield and Lincoln.
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