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Ian Evatt believes his Wanderers side passed a significant test by taking three points from Shrewsbury Town.
Paris Maghoma and Aaron Morley scored the goals to ensure a sixth league win out of seven, which lifted the Whites level with second-placed Oxford United in the table.
Shrewsbury’s home form has been their strength this season – and no side had managed to score against them in the league since mid-September.
While Bolton were never at their free-flowing best against well-drilled opposition on a tight pitch, they came through with a performance which pleased their manager greatly.
“I was absolutely delighted because this is a tough place to come,” he said after the final whistle.
“They are a big, physical, strong team and every player who comes on is my size.
“I thought we defended set plays superbly well. We are not going to have it our own way all the time, we sometimes have to be patient. They set up in a good shape, made it difficult to play through, frustrated us at times. But as we have said a bit in recent years, they can’t play like that for 90 minutes.
“We had just started to get them fatigued when the first goal arrived. Then we had to dig deep and this group is capable of doing that.
“Then right at the end we are all shouting at Jon Dadi Bodvarsson to run the ball to the corner but he produced a nice bit of play and Aaron Morley buries one to make the game completely safe.
“They have won the last three or four games here and not conceded much at all, so to get a win is really, really pleasing.”
Wanderers struggled to get their passing game going in the first half but Evatt was pleased that they continued to protect their penalty box effectively, even when their attacking plan was yet to pay off.
“We still had 65ish per cent possession, dominated the ball, and this is a very narrow pitch which is very bobbly, so it was hard to be exact with our passing at times,” he said.
“Some of those fast connections against a deep, low block at times, they didn’t come off, but we stayed patient and I was really happy with the fact we just did the basics.”
Brentford loanee Maghoma profited from a mistake from home keeper Marko Marosi, who it was revealed went into the game with an injury which eventually forced him off the pitch.
“That is three times he has got that type of goal, so Lady Luck is smiling down on him,” Evatt added.
“We have talked to him about adding goals to his game from that sort of space.
“Him and George Thomason did that well tonight.”
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