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Ian Evatt has explained how wing-backs Marlon Fossey and Declan John are getting in on the act at Wanderers.
The two wide men were instrumental in Saturday’s 3-0 win at Gillingham with John on the scoresheet and Fossey supplying two assists.
But Evatt pointed out that their success on the day was down to the pair drifting off the touchline and swapping positions with number 10, Dapo Afolayan, a ploy which had been worked on during the week at Lostock.
“If you noticed our wing-backs traditionally would have been staying wide because we haven’t really had a chance to coach anything else, but now there is also a rotation where our 10 is drifting wide and our wing-back is taking in central pockets,” he said.
“I think in the second half, Dec found himself in the middle of the box a lot and that is something that we want to work on.
“We want that fluidity, we want that rotation, because it becomes difficult to play against. If you are predictable and you are playing straight lines, opposition can set up against you, but once you start moving and rotating and you have that freedom and fluency, it is challenging and I thought we posed them a lot of questions.”
The rotation of players from centre to wide positions was illustrated in the build-up to Aaron Morley’s opening goal, where MJ Williams found himself drifting to the right to link up with Fossey, which opened up the space for his team-mate to score a spectacular strike.
“We created the overload and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Evatt said. “We are trying to move the opposition side to side to create overloads and then once we have got it one side, switch it quickly to the other side to overloads there and punish, and we did that with the first goal, and one or two other moments as well.”
As dominant as Bolton were on the day, Evatt admitted that the security of the second goal, scored by John, was a welcome arrival.
“The way Gillingham play, they are never out of the game because of the nature of the set plays and long throws, but the key points are that we got the first goal so they didn’t have anything to hang on to.
“I just thought we broke their spirit a bit with our control in possession. It is difficult when you are chasing the ball for 90 minutes and when they did recover the ball and try and attack, our counter-press was fantastic so I was pleased all round.”
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