One ‘BWFC’ has already put Joey Barton in a bad mood this week – and Ian Evatt hopes his own can make it another weekend to forget for the Bristol Rovers boss.

Friday night’s opponents were unceremoniously dumped out of the FA Cup at the second round stage last week by National League Boreham Wood, prompting a few choice words from Barton in his post-match press conference.

Having voiced his disappointment at performance levels in a 2-0 home defeat, the former Manchester City and Newcastle United midfielder will be demanding more when Rovers come to the University of Bolton Stadium on Friday night.

Evatt has warned his own players of a potential backlash.

“He’ll have them highly motivated for Friday and he would have let them know exactly, as I would have, that that is not acceptable,” he told The Bolton News. “Having said that, Luke Garrard the manager of Boreham Wood is a friend of mine and we were both young managers in the National League, we still speak to each other a fair bit, so I’m really pleased for him and it’s not the first time that he’s won big cup matches.

“I wasn’t surprised by that result, but if football was predictable it would be a pretty boring game so these things happen and that’s why we love the FA Cup.”

Barton – who came close to signing for Wanderers at a particularly controversial point in his playing career – has cut out a promising career for himself in the dugout and will be on his 99th game in charge of Bristol Rovers on Friday night.

Having led his club to automatic promotion last season, the Huyton-born coach has had somewhat of a colourful career of highs and lows in football but Evatt believes he has plenty to give the game.

“I think he’s calm. I think he’s composed, he’s really intelligent and he’s a very good manager,” he said. “We have players that have worked under him at Fleetwood. Matt Gilks played with him at Rangers and Burnley and knows him really well, was under him at Fleetwood and everyone speaks really highly of him.

“Joey’s a winner first and foremost, he wants to win football matches and I don’t know him as well as those guys do personally, but I certainly know he loves the game and he loves what he does and that’s a really important thing.

“I have a huge amount of respect for anyone that sits in a manager’s position because I know how difficult it is. I know the pressures that you come under so anyone who has that role has my utmost respect and Joey is no different to that.”

Defeat in the cup last weekend was only Bristol Rovers’ second in 14 games and since promotion they have shown themselves to be among the division’s most prolific scorers, with striker Aaron Collins already into double figures for the season,” Evatt surmised. “I think they’ve done really well, they’re a team with some good attacking threats. I think they’re a team that have some good players, especially at the top end of the pitch.

“We must remember that they’re a newly promoted team and we know how difficult it is being a newly promoted team to have success and sustained success in this division. Joey knows this division really well from being Fleetwood’s manager and they’ve given a really good account of themselves.

“I think it’s going to be a really difficult game. They carry a serious goal threat, they’ve been in some high scoring games so far this season, they create a lot of chances so we’re going to have to play to our best to get the result we want.”