Bolton Wanderers boss Ian Evatt issues target in League One play-off chase

Facing back-to-back home games against Wimbledon and Lincoln City, the Bolton boss is keen to see some improvement in possession from a team still settling down after some extensive January recruitment.

February’s hectic schedule, coupled with some fearful weather and the loss of the club’s indoor bubble, has given Evatt little opportunity to work with his players on the training ground.

“I am genuinely looking forward to working out on the pitch with them,” he said. “I know there is loads more to come from this group. We have been fortunate to add new players to the squad and get some of the others back from injury and got results – in eight games we have won six, drawn one and lost one. And with due respect, we have dropped points to the two lesser teams in that run, so it is something we will look at. It is our kryptonite.

“But I haven’t had the opportunity to work with them much yet. There is much more detail I want to go into.

“We need to be dominating possession more than what we are doing at the moment. We look a threat, we look attacking and we’re carrying a serious goalscoring threat but I’d like to see us have more control in games.

“That doesn't mean slow build up and building from the back, but going through periods of games where we can have some control.

“We don’t have to score with every attack, we don’t have to score in one breath and sometimes it’s about resting and recovering with the ball.

“We need to do that better and some of our patterns need to be better, but we’ve not had time with them on the grass at all so after next week and after MK, we’ll have that chance during March to really get some tactical detail in them and we’ll only improve from there.”

Tuesday night’s defeat at bogey team Burton interrupted an unbeaten streak of seven games, leaving Evatt glad to return to the well-manicured turf of the UniBol this weekend.

“The pitch was difficult and it’s certainly not something that we’re going to do too much moaning about because it is what it is,” he said. “There’s nothing that we can affect.

“I heard what Jimmy (Flloyd Hasselbaink) said after the game about their gameplan and about pressing us.

“For me, they already had a leg up with the pitch because we couldn’t play the type of football we wanted to play and I don’t think it was anything to do with the gameplan. In fact, I think his gameplan was set pieces - and that hurt us, which is full credit to him.

“In terms of the actual game, I don’t remember them having a shot other than a set play and I think it was mostly us that created the chances from open play, but as I said, they did a job on us, the pitch did a job on us, and that’s that.

“We need to park that and the margin for error has got smaller and we need to make sure we go into these two home games and perform to our level. If we can do that then I’m confident we can get wins.”