IT should come as no surprise that Ian Evatt’s name shot to the top of the list when his former club Blackpool suddenly found themselves without a manager.

The shock departure of Neil Critchley to Aston Villa shows how you should take nothing for granted in football – except, of course, that a former player will instantly be installed as the ‘bookies’ favourite’ the moment a job becomes available.

Of course Blackpool would want Evatt. He did great things at Bloomfield Road as a player, representing them in the Premier League, still has plenty of contacts and friends in that neck of the woods. And his reputation as a bright, modern-thinking coach has progressed in two years in charge of the Whites – challenging ones at that – with one promotion and a ninth-placed finish in League One tucked nicely into his CV.

He has faced some big challenges at Bolton, and made mistakes, but through the difficult spells he has forged a very strong relationship with the club, and particularly the current board. And it is for that reason that I am confident he would pass on an offer from the Tangerines, were one to come along.

Forget the social media bravado between supporters, Blackpool is an upwardly mobile club these days. Free from the odious Oystons and with big plans for a new £30million training centre, it is good to see one of Lancashire’s sleeping giants making some progress.

Had Wanderers languished in the bottom half of the table last season, Evatt shown any sign that the club’s ambition was not matching his own, there may have been more doubt around his future.

But while the Whites failed to hit his target of the top six, they finished strongly enough to suggest they will go a lot closer this time around, especially if they can strengthen this summer.

Blackpool did contemplate moving for Evatt a couple of years back, while he was still in charge at Barrow, but decided to go in a different direction. In the end, they can have few complaints with the job Critchley did with what is one of the smallest playing budgets in the Championship.

Evatt hardly has a king’s ransom to spent at the UniBol – estimates ranging from the fifth to the ninth biggest budget in the division – but after making incremental changes over the last few transfer windows with Chris Markham, he now seems to have things just where he wants them on the recruitment front.

He is ambitious and speaks freely about wanting to manage in the Premier League. But he also insists that he can do that with Bolton and has done more than anyone to champion of the work that owners, Football Ventures, have done.

There was a time early in his tenure where results were going badly and pockets of supporters were calling for change. Support for the manager at board level was unwavering, and that will not be forgotten.

Many supporters pointed to the departure of Bruce Rioch, whose three years were chronicled in great detail on the pages of this very newspaper last week. He too had to live with constant speculation – Scotland, Sunderland, Middlesbrough to name but a few – before taking the plunge with Arsenal. With great respect to Blackpool, the leap would be nowhere near as understandable.

Rather, Bolton supporters will have to live with speculation, enjoy it, even. For if Evatt continues to get interest from elsewhere, he is doing his job well. And it would only be when the balance tips between his own motivation and that of the club should there be any cause for alarm.

It is no different for Dapo Afolayan, who has found his name circling the gossip columns this summer.

A diligent and studious young man, he would probably rather avoid the attention, or at least the constant questioning about whether he will stay or not stay at Bolton. He is also bright enough to know that it only happens when things are going well, as they certainly have over the last 18 months.

As Oscar Wilde once said: “There is only one thing in the world worse that being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

Time to talk transfers?

ONE of the questions I get asked most in this job is: “But what do you write about in the summer?”

I understand the curiosity. There are no games and usually no press conferences for several weeks, and during the season they provide the framework for practically everything we write.

Added to that, most football staff - like teachers - are corralled into taking their holidays at very specific times of the year. 

That gap between the end-of-season debriefs and the start of the pre-season friendlies can be challenging. And without a well-stocked contacts book and a handful of favours ready to be called in, you can find yourself scrabbling around for stories at this time of year.

Personally, this is my favourite time in the job. Rather than churning out words against a tight deadline or racing rival publications, for whom the idea of crafting a story rather than robotically transcribing every syllable seems a foreign one, the summer allows me to sit for a few hours and speak to people, to find stories. Romantic, huh?

Transfer stories tend to dominate the agenda, more’s the pity.

In the football-saturated mire of social media there is a whole spectrum of information available at the click of a search engine, from the well-informed to the utterly ridiculous. Sifting through that is one of my least favourite tasks, even though it is a necessary evil.

Wanderers have been especially quiet in the last few weeks. Ian Evatt said he wanted most of his signings on board the plane to Portugal - a trip which starts in just over a fortnight. He will have to get his skates on if he is going to hit his target.

Even if he doesn’t, why should that matter? For the first time in ages Bolton start the season with a settled squad. There are holes to fill, yes, but nothing like the yawning chasms of previous years.

I fear that with so much transfer tittle-tattle out there, a rather entitled breed of supporter has been created, one that comments automatically on every club message with a half-serious demand to “announce [insert player name here].”

There shouldn’t be such panic. Rushing deals is a mistake best left in the past.