IAN Evatt gave credit to Wanderers for finding their way back into Tuesday night’s game at Charlton.

For the eighth time in 10 league games this season, Bolton found themselves behind to the game’s first goal, as Josh Davison struck in the 12th minute at The Valley.

Evatt thought his side laboured in possession at times in the first half – and produced a few stern words at the interval to shake the players out of their malaise – but he was pleased with the way they seized control of the latter stages, going on to record a convincing 4-1 win.

“I thought we started well and we were building from the back really well, but we didn’t progress with our possession as we normally do,” he said.

“For whatever reason, just our speed of thought, our speed of movement, our decision making, wasn’t quite there. When we got it right and figured out where the space was, the goal came from that and the space first half because they had locked on centrally and went man for man centrally, the space was with our full backs and wide forwards and that rotation they did.

“As soon as we switched the ball quickly and had that rotation – for example, Dapo does not score if Declan doesn’t make that run. Declan attracts the defenders away, Dapo comes inside and scores.

“Second half once we had a go at them at half-time and told them about where the space is and told them to lift the intensity, they blew them away. That’s what they’re capable of, but there’s still so much more to come.

“Football’s a funny game, we played in my opinion better on Saturday and got nothing and today we scored four and that’s just football.”

Knowing pressure was piling up on Charlton boss Nigel Adkins, Evatt had talked about the importance of the first goal in the build-up to the game.

But once Afolayan levelled the scores just before half time the mood within the stadium changed dramatically, and when the goals started to flow with Kieran Lee and Antoni Sarcevic, home fans made their displeasure perfectly clear.

“Everything we spoke about pre-match about not giving them a leg up, not giving their fans something to sing about, we did the opposite and then they gave them a leg up and found it hard for themselves,” Evatt said.

“But as I keep saying, this squad of players has immense character and belief in what they do and that rocked us, but then we settled it down, figured it out and then we found a way to win the game.”