AFTER a summer considering tactical changes in response to the play-off final defeat, it took just five games for Wanderers to seek the comfort of Plan A once again.
Ian Evatt said he may have overcompensated after Wembley, abandoning the 3-5-2 system which had got him to the play-offs in the previous two seasons in favour of something he felt would be less predictable.
Recruitment had been painfully slow, injuries had made it even tougher to bed down tactical detail in the pre-season friendly games, and though Bolton had set off with a scrappy win at Leyton Orient it was painfully obvious that Evatt’s players were struggling to adapt.
The Whites beat Mansfield Town on penalties at home thanks to saves from debutant Luke Southwood and they earned a solid, if unspectacular home draw against Wrexham, which also saw Phil Parkinson return to the stadium for the first time since he resigned as manager in the summer of 2019.
The first red flags came in defeats at Charlton and at home to Exeter City. The League Cup had offered a little bit of solace, as a 2-0 win at Shrewsbury booked a mouthwatering third round tie at Arsenal’s Emirates but the league table showed Bolton 18th after four games and little did we know the worst was still to come.
Transfer deadline day ended up somewhat of a damp squib. Wanderers has hoped to convince ex-Leeds United defender Liam Cooper to sign on a free transfer, the Scotland international having previously played with Evatt at Chesterfield but were scooped at the last moment by Bulgarian side CSKA Sofia. They also tried to bring in Alex Murphy on loan from Newcastle United but a minor injury meant he had to wait until January to complete the move.
Interest in Victor Adeboyejo, including a reported £1million bid from Turkey, had been turned down but Bolton did business with Hibs to sell Australian defender Jack Iredale and loan striker Dan Nlundulu to Cambridge United.
Evatt had called for “context” to be applied in the slow start, pointing toward the injury list and a raft of players who were due to return to full fitness in the weeks ahead.
But Ricardo Santos, who was soon to be at the centre of a storm of his own, admitted after the 2-0 reverse against Exeter City: “To a man, we were not good enough!”
Frustration had carried through from the previous season, where the chase for automatic promotion had also been kyboshed by injuries. The Oxford United result had left folk upset but with no time to vent their spleen. Wanderers were finding out quickly that the tank of goodwill had long since expired.
The timbre of the Toughsheet was changing. And in the lawless world of social media, the anger had taken on a more malevolent form.
Evatt had claimed his 12-year-old son had been targeted for online abuse, and it was a similar case for the club captain, Santos, who closed his own accounts but also had family become entangled in the unpleasantness.
Read more: Wanderers season review part one
If Bolton had set off on an unsure footing, they would soon be slipping down the mountain at a quicker rate of knots. Evatt lost another player to injury in the Vertu Trophy group stage, as Jordi Osei-Tutu succumbed to a hamstring issue at Barrow, prompting a flood of complaints about his selection policies in a competition which did not feel relevant.
In a wider context, football fans seemed to be pushing back against the fashionable possession football which had been made popular by Pep Guardiola and Manchester City. Evatt – a self-confessed devotee – may have changed the shape of his team but refused to stray from his principles, with ball retention and playing out from the back at the very top of the list.
The whole matter would come to a head after an international break against Huddersfield Town. Each one of the four goals conceded felt like a poisoned pen letter to Brand Evatt, with thousands of fans leaving the stadium long before the final whistle.
Anthony Evans’ final strike for Huddersfield – a mess of backwards passes and panicky clearances – was replayed gleefully by those who felt the possession agenda had been pushed too far. Bolton’s own fans twisted the knife, singing: “Backwards and sideways, everywhere we go!”
An indignant Evatt described the stick he got on the day as “disrespectful” and tried to offer something in defence of his own record at Bolton. The argument was falling on increasingly deaf ears, particularly when win percentages were mentioned, and by the close of his press conference the manager admitted he would be seeking talks with Sharon Brittan and Nick Luckock to decide whether it was right for him to continue.
Though strong rumours would circulate later in the year about other managerial options being considered, including ex-Preston North End boss Alex Neil, there seems little evidence that the Bolton board seriously entertained Evatt stepping away at that stage.
Change did arrive, albeit not in the shape we expected. Bolton lined-up against Reading in Evatt’s tried-and-trusted 3-5-2 formation and George Thomason, who had been noticeably more vocal in the warm-ups, was wearing the captain’s armband.
Whatever soul-searching was done over the course of the week seemed to jobs" target="_blank">work. Bolton rattled five goals past Reading with Dion Charles scoring a hat-trick. The Whites still seemed defensively brittle but the decision to ‘double down’ on the gameplan which had come in for such criticism post play-offs seemed a uniquely Evatt two-fingered salute.
Taking the captain’s armband from Santos was another bold move.
“I just felt the time was right to change it and share the pressure,” Evatt said the following week. “This is a huge pressure environment and Ricardo being the captain of this club has taken a huge amount of criticism and some of it has been personal and way over the line.
“I wanted to let him focus on being him, focus on his performances and what he does best, which is be a fantastic player for this club.
“George is a young man who can take on and share that pressure. He doesn’t feel it, he is a different mind and mentality to other players and is very strong. He will grow into the role.”
Wanderers were thumped 5-1 at Arsenal, a game which amounted to little more than a nice day out in North London for all involved. But their league form picked up and wins against Crawley and Northampton also saw Santos back to something like his best.
The big defender made his point, however, refusing to celebrate goals or acknowledge the fans to any great degree after the final whistle on a couple of occasions.
Players had taken serious flak for the start they had made to the season, and some did not feel such a reaction had been warranted. Aside for Santos’s brief show of defiance the matter did not surface and as the club hurtled through October to poke their head into the top six at last, leaving us to wonder if the season could yet be retrieved?
It is, after all, always the hope that kills you.
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