IAN Evatt apologised for a poor first half performance against Bristol Rovers – but said he saw enough in the second half to suggest there are no major issues for him to address.

Wanderers went in at the break 2-0 behind and down to 10 men after the dismissal of captain Ricardo Santos – with the Whites boss admitting that Monday’s defeat at Portsmouth was still playing on the mind of some of his players.

Though Bolton rallied after the break and gave themselves a glimmer of hope with Eoin Toal’s late effort, they could not push for an equaliser, ensuring that they dropped out of the automatic promotion spots.

Reflecting on the first half, Evatt said: “Anything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong, in the first half for sure. But it was all self-inflicted.

“We started the game OK but we lacked a bit of tempo and energy. I thought there was with some players, not all, a hangover from Monday. Some were feeling sorry for themselves and I was disappointed to concede the first goal in the manner we did. Clearly, that was their first attack.

“The sending-off was a clear error. Rico is a brilliant player and people make mistakes but that really changed everything. We had a clear tactical idea of what we wanted to do, which meant sacrificing Dion, which isn’t an easy decision to make. But you saw the fruits in the second half, when we got the plan right, we completely dominated with 10 men.

“To make the change and then concede a second goal, though, made it a mountain to climb.

“That was the end of all the bad stuff. We came up with the plan and second half we dominated with 10 men, showed great character, courage and energy, which a lot of that was missing in the first half. If we had scored 10 minutes earlier we would have got something from the game, I think, but first half and second half were night and day.”

The substitution of Will Forrester for Dion Charles on 40 minutes prompted an unhappy reaction from the Wanderers supporters – magnified after Antony Evans doubled Rovers’ lead less than a minute later.

Evatt explained his decision after the final whistle, after it was suggested the substitution would be discussed at length among the fanbase.

“If you look at the second half it shouldn’t be because the plan worked,” he said. “Our plan almost got us a result in the game but to give you some understanding of why we did that, if they are going to have the ball, we want it to be at the back and not up front. If we take a midfield player off to keep two strikers off we will be sacrificing elsewhere, whereas our defensive structure can remain the same. We can tweak things slightly to jump midfield players out to centre-backs when Jon can’t get across, and we made it really difficult for them second half. They didn’t have any comfortable passages of possession or play.

“We just didn’t give ourselves a chance conceding that second goal as soon as we made the change.

“It is tough for Dion, but he understands why we needed more of a focal point in Jon to get us further up the pitch. As I said, it almost worked second half but first half we just weren’t good enough.

“The fans stuck with us amazingly in the second half and really rallied and got behind us. We are very sorry for the way we performed in the first half, we are better than that.”

Wanderers dropped to fifth but Evatt insists there has been no lasting damage done to the club’s automatic promotion hopes.

“I don’t buy into that – we’re not even halfway through the season and there is a long, long way to go,” he said. “If we win our extra game we are still second, in the automatic spots.

“I have said before we are going to have highs, we are going to have lows, and this week has been a bit of a low.

“This week we need to manage the environment, manage the emotion, keep everyone calm and composed, focussed on what we want to do. But I have a huge amount of faith in this team and I should, too, because when you see what they did in the second half against a team with some good players and individuals, there is still a lot to be confident about.

“We will lick our wounds, regroup, and get ready for next week.”