A thousand-mile stare, a look of pure incredulity, and words that would hit home harder than anything that had happened in 90 agonising minutes at Wembley.
“I don’t know what, but something has to change,” Ian Evatt said after his side had been soundly beaten by Oxford United in the play-off final, meaning a fourth consecutive season of League One football.
The ambiguity of that statement lingered for weeks. Doubts about the squad’s ability to handle the high-pressure games had followed them around since losing out to Portsmouth and Derby County in the race for automatic promotion. For the first time, however, sensible folk were asking if Evatt had taken this team as far as it could go.
Supporters were not the only ones asking questions. The manager himself spent weeks after the final considering whether he could go again after two unsuccessful play-off campaigns.
Leaving aside all the emotions, Evatt had improved the club’s league position on each and every year. Though his possession-first brand of football had never won universal popularity among the Bolton fanbase, and nor had his slavish reliance on data, reducing it all to noughts and zeroes had won games, plenty of them, in fact.
Whether Evatt did offer to step aside is unclear. He most certainly volunteered to fall on his sword after the home defeat to Huddersfield Town four months later, by which time the doubts over his ability to take the Whites to promotion had turned into defiant banners being held up in the stands. But when the cold logic still pointed to him doing a good job, the board were inclined not to make a change.
Reservations had also been voiced about the club’s recruitment but by the first week of June Sharon Brittan stepped up to declare her backing for both Evatt and her sporting director Chris Markham.
“We face a challenge,” he told The Bolton News. “And I do think we need to layer into the intelligence of Ian, Chris and their personnel. I do see there will be a financial increase (among rivals clubs at League One level) and I think it is important that the fans understand that’s our thought process.”
The arrival of big-spending Birmingham City and, to a lesser extent, Wrexham, had raised the bar on playing budgets, and Ms Brittan had been keen to underline that the board would channel all of their available cash towards the first team budget.
For this to be happening at a time when Bolton were suddenly signing more misses than hits was a recipe for disaster. The insistence that Evatt and Markham could simply soldier on and ‘complete the story’ looks with a degree of hindsight, a poor decision.
At the same time, however, Ms Britan was pledging to conduct a ‘root and branch review’ of all corners of the club, to see what aspects could be improved and which were not performing to the required standard.
Changes were made to the first team coaching staff, with Evatt’s ex-Blackpool teammate Stephen Crainey brought in as first team coach from Wigan Athletic and Andy Taylor – another former Bloomfield Road man – heading up the B Team. Matt Craddock was released and is now working at Waterford in Ireland.
The review also dug deep into the recruitment and analysis department, ruffling a few feathers in the process. The harmony in that part of the club never quite recovered, and it is no accident that Fergal Harkin and Jimmy Dickinson are being drafted in this summer to try and get things back on an even keel.
All eyes were on recruitment and how Bolton would react to their play-off failure. The release of Cameron Jerome and Declan John came as little shock – but Jon Dadi Bodvarsson’s departure was not a popular decision, particularly as it left Evatt’s squad lacking any natural centre-forward.
Progress on incoming deals proved frustratingly slow. Chris Forino and Klaidi Lolos linked up with the squad on their Portugal warm weather training trip but new keeper Luke Southwood was still recovering from a fractured leg and Scott Arfield, a midfielder well-known to Markham from his time with Huddersfield, was only just off a full season in MLS with Charlotte.
Evatt had himself undergone a makeover – returning in pre-season with deep tan, whiter teeth and significant weight loss in an effort to show he had ‘moved on’ from the previous season. He later told The Bolton News: “If I can change, I can set an example, I can go and do what I have done over the last three months, then I can show the players I am in the right frame of mind. I am here to lead. I am here to be ready.”
But by the time Wanderers launched into their pre-season schedule it was hard to shake the feeling that they were behind schedule. Evatt had planned to bring in an alternate formation – 3-4-3, or “four-box-four” in manager terminology. This, he claimed, would be how his team could evolve from the one dubbed so predictable in the previous season.
One major handicap was that the squad carried with it legacy injuries. Eoin Toal, Dion Charles, Gethin Jones, Ricardo Santos, Carlos Mendes Gomes and Randel Williams had all failed to find full fitness in pre-season, leaving Bolton looking under-prepared.
Big money was spent on Hungarian Szabi Schon, John McAtee and Jordi Osei-Tutu, who all arrived at the back end of the friendly schedule, yet as the club inched towards the opening day fixture with Leyton Orient it was difficult to read what the club had in mind.
Only a quarter of ALL beaten play-off finalists since the system was introduced in 1987 have gone on to claim promotion by any means the following year. That statistic summed up the challenge ahead for the Whites but talk inside the camp was predictably bullish – Evatt and his players had addressed Wembley on day one in a group meeting on the Algarve, and there would be no further discussion on the matter.
Nine of the players who started the game against Oxford United were also in Evatt’s first line-up at Leyton Orient, the only exceptions being Schon and Arfield. Things had changed but not by nearly the amount many had expected.
The new season began with a win. The performance was clunky, Victor Adeboyejo’s winning goal was as scruffy as they come, but for a brief moment there was a rethink; had Evatt changed just enough to make a difference?
New signing Klaidi Lolos was levelled by a poor challenge by Dan Happe late in the game, putting him out for several weeks. As it turns out, that incident felt more in tune with what was in store for the Whites, in what would become a very rocky ride.
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