'I believe in Sharon' - Evatt has faith in Football Ventures plan at Wanderers

Ian Evatt is convinced that player trading can help Wanderers become a sustainable club in the future.

The release of accounts at the start of the week showed the road ahead for owners, Football Ventures, who have dramatically decreased operating losses at the University of Bolton Stadium but who may yet need fresh investment to push forward in the future.

Wanderers have built up their squad over the previous few transfer windows and Evatt feels his current options are strong enough to compete for a promotion spot in League One.

The Bolton boss will not be operating with one of top budgets in the division but remains confident that he and technical performance director Chris Markham can still find bargains which can make money further down the line.

“That’s why we did so much work in January because if we’d have let that go to free auction in the summer, we might have been priced out of it,” he said of signings like Dion Charles and Aaron Morley.

“The reason we did our work in January was because at that point, the value was good for us, and we could be smart with it. We could get work done before other teams were ready to do so.

“Hopefully we will see the benefits at the start of this season. This group has been together now for six months and they understand what we want. We are trying to tweak things to make us even better, but at large I think we have got a really good squad of players and obviously we are working really hard to find those rough diamonds and polish them up into the big assets.

“That’s our model now and what we want to do. That’s the only real way of becoming sustainable to be honest, player trading. That’s just a fact.

“No disrespect to anything else, but the massive sums of money that you can get for players and your own talent is huge, and that means if this club is safe forever for the future, then why wouldn’t we do it.”

Evatt has maintained it would take significant money to take any of his top players this summer and though there has been informal interest in the likes of Ricardo Santos and Dapo Afolayan, Wanderers’ resolve has yet to be tested by a serious offer.

Asked whether player sales were inevitable in the future, Evatt added: “I have faith and respect - and so should everybody, every Bolton Wanderers supporter, all the media, myself, my staff, all the players - in Sharon Brittan and the rest of the board and whatever decision they make, I know will be the right one for this football club.

“I have never been put under any pressure to sell anybody or even get assets to sell. We bring players in to make us better and try to get us higher up the English pyramid.

“That is what we are trying to do at present and everything else, the business side of things, I believe in Sharon, I trust her and I think she’ll make the best calls for Bolton Wanderers.”

Source

I have no problem with managing our expectations and I'm impressed with the way they have gone about their transfer business so far.
The main thing is that we live within our means - and they seem to be doing that, although time will tell.
Secondly they have given us an outside chance of playoffs/promotion
Thirdly they are strictly business in the transfer market, sticking to valuations, walking away from deals that don't fit the financial criteria and attaching no sentimentality to players they don't think will do the business
Fourthly they have recruited plenty of inexpensive young players with potential so they are backing their own player development skills to supplement the squad
Finally, they have recruited to play an attacking football style

Sure I'd like more - wouldn't we all? - but under the circumstances I think they are going about it in the right way.

The release of accounts at the start of the week showed the road ahead for owners, Football Ventures, who have dramatically decreased operating losses at the University of Bolton Stadium ...

Bullshit in the mornin'
Bullshit in the evenin'
Bullshit at suppertime
Sign up to the Beeno
And get bullshit on the line

Twaddle in the mornin'
Twaddle in the evenin'
Twaddle at suppertime
Why's it such a doddle
To dupe folk all the time

At least Brother Maguire doesn't seem to have been duped this time around. By no stretch of the imagination is the write off of half the debt due to the Eddie Davies Trust 'operating income'.

Good to see that the article points out that "we will not be operating with one of the top budgets in the division".
If we can hang on to Dapo and Santos we'll have done well and having tied them down to longer contracts it should ensure a decent price if we have to sell.