CHRIS Evans reckons Wanderers boss Gary Megson does not get the tactical credit he deserves.

But for Sean Davis’s red card against Liverpool on Saturday, the assistant manager believes the Whites would have been celebrating their first win of the campaign instead of staring up from the bottom three.

Despite the 3-2 defeat, Evans says there was much to admire from the way Wanderers went about their business against last season’s title runners-up — and laid much of the credit on Megson’s doorstep.

“Within the game Gary Megson is recognised as an outstanding coach and that’s what he is,” said the Welshman. “I graduated with him on the UEFA Pro Licence and saw it myself in a very high calibre field. His tactical nous is outstanding and he deserves credit for that.

“Against Liverpool, the manager had identified certain weaknesses within their set pieces, especially at corners. He saw it before anyone else — no-one else at this club had realised it and he put forward a strategy that exposed it.

“These type of events don’t get picked up by the media because they don’t have that tactical nous themselves, and nor should they.

“I personally felt that the tactics against Liverpool were brilliant, yet we came away with nothing.”

Davis’s sending off, which is likely to mean he will miss Wanderers’ next match at his old club Portmsouth on September 12, put a dampener on what had been a successful 90 minutes, claims Evans.

And he felt Alan Wiley’s decision to issue a second yellow card for a foul on Lucas Leiva summed up the hard luck the Reebok side have been enjoying since the start of the season.

“Is there luck in football? I think there is,” Evans said. “I really do think we have been desperately unlucky not to register some points.

“We came up against a phenomenally strong club, squad and team with world class players in it and yet I felt that tactically the manager got it absolutely perfect. Spot on.

“He chose to man mark Gerrard and until the sending off, with utmost respect to a player we all hold in great esteem, he hadn’t had an effect on the game. Fabrice Muamba had followed his instructions to the letter.

“Whether it’s the Premier League or the Blue Square Premier, if you go down to 10 men, more often than not, you lose.

“That was the turning point. The referee makes his decisions but personally I thought the second one could have been given, and it might not.

“I don’t think that in a passionate, thrilling game the second tackle was particularly vicious. It was a player running across another and a clipping of a heel.

“For the whole result to change on that decision, from our point of view, is disappointing.

“It was heart-wrenching.

The players had worked so hard and the tactics had been brilliant.”

Davis picked up his first yellow card for kicking the ball away after Wiley had awarded a free-kick for a separate foul on Lucas — and Evans hopes that the midfielder will learn from his impudence.

“Sean was doing well in the game,” he said. “We have brought him here to give us some experience and the first part of the sending off was the first booking and hopefully he can reflect on that and use it to his benefit.”

Evans also paid tribute to the atmosphere created at the Reebok on Saturday. Plenty of work is still to be done to win over those Wanderers fans who have been critical of manager and his players, particularly given recent results.

Yet Megson’s right-hand man is confident that if whole-hearted performances such as the one put in against the Reds on Saturday can be replicated, it is not an impossible task.

“We often concentrate on the atmosphere and relationships with the manager, but the fact is when Bolton Wanderers play in the manner they played against Liverpool, or Hull, the fans will be 100 per cent behind their club, the players and the manager — that’s a fact,” he said.

“They recognised the hard work that has been put in. Decent people will give you credit for that level of performance.”