IAN Evatt hopes his players can use the criticism that came their way at the weekend to produce an effective response against Plymouth on Tuesday night.

The Bolton boss met with his players this morning to go through his thoughts on a dismal 4-0 defeat before getting aboard the team bus for a 300-mile trip to Home Park.

Emotion was running high at the weekend and the response on social media was so severe that defender Harry Brockbank paused his Twitter account to remove himself from the noise.

Evatt knew there would be an extreme reaction after a disappointing result but now hopes to use it as motivation for a better performance at the League One leaders.

“We were gutted but that is the harsh reality of football,” he said.

“We are probably in one of the only industries where every time you go to work you get judged on your performance. If you don’t perform to what people view the level you should then they have the platforms to tell you about it, social media, out in Bolton, it is the world we live in.

“Football is highs and lows but you need to build that strength of character and try to come back from adversity, prove people wrong.

“We are all trying to prove people wrong all of the time. There’s no doubt that I would have got it in the neck on Saturday and rightfully so, it is part of the job. I got it in the neck for the first six months of last season but we still went up.

“Keep yourself calm, keep yourself balanced, and make sure you have that fire in your belly to come back and prove people wrong.”

It is not the first time that Evatt and his players have found themselves at the centre of a Wanderers storm, and the manager looked back at roughly 12 months ago where he was facing a similar backlash.

“It was easy to forget what it was like here last December, getting pumped by six by Port Vale, beat 4-0 by Leyton Orient. Those results get forgotten about in the end,” he said.

“The Wigan result won’t be forgotten because of who it was against but we need to use it to inspire and motivate us.

“I have complete confidence in them and if I didn’t I wouldn’t speak so highly about them with you guys. But they have to go out there and prove it. Our actions need to match our words.”