IAN Evatt reckons new signing Dion Charles is going to be an important catalyst in the progression of his Wanderers side in the second half of the season.

The Northern Ireland international was snapped up for £320,000 from Accrington Stanley to become the club’s first cash purchase in more than three years.

And Evatt believes the 26-year-old will help his new club improve their attacking press – something which was evident in patches against Rotherham United on Saturday.

“I think he’s going to give us some electric pace in behind,” he said of Charles, who will wear the number 10 shirt.

“His work ethic and his out of possession stuff is exceptional and we’ve done a lot of work, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed today on the front three and the way we pressed the ball.

“For me Liverpool at the moment are the best team at it and their front three, the amount of balls they win high up the pitch and then they turn defence into attack, transition positions, I think once we regain the ball then we are in better positions to go and attack and score and it takes pressure off the back and midfield lads.

“The more pressure you get on the ball, the less quality comes forward. At times this season, especially the last couple of months, I think what’s happened is our wide forwards have been doing too much work defensively and tracking back too far, trying to overcover full-backs.

“Then when we win the ball back, they’ve got to beat six, seven, eight men before we can get in the back of the net.

“Here what we’re trying to do now is get the ball won high up the pitch but get them high up the pitch to go and hurt the opposition and score.

“I thought we saw that a few times first half, we had a couple of opportunities we should have done better with and second half, we obviously fatigued because it’s hard work to do that, but we’ll get better at it, we’ve got bodies coming in the building that can help us do it and Dion’s one of those.”