IAN Evatt believes he has the full backing of Wanderers’ owners to continue the job he has started.
Faced with mounting questions about the club’s poor start to the campaign, the Whites head coach admits bedding down more than 20 summer signings in a new style of play will take longer than first expected.
Promotion talk was rife in the summer and Evatt wants his players to continue to aim high even after registering just two wins from the first 11 games.
But he has also urged supporters to be realistic about the money spent in the summer and how the mass turnover of players has affected the early season form.
Asked whether Bolton’s owners, Football Ventures, shared his view, he told The Bolton News: “Myself and the ownership group are very, very close and tight. They have invested in me and see a lot of good in me, which is great. I have their trust and their backing.
“I will do all I can to make sure I repay that faith, simple as that.
“They understand the project, they understand the journey.
“We all want success because this club does deserve it more than most with what it has been through but a sense of perspective – we are not spending three, four, five or six million pounds. We’re under the salary cap and to put that figure into perspective, it would be a bottom six League Two budget last season.
“That isn’t because the owners won’t spend it, it is because there is a salary cap and the fact we want this club to be sustainable. We don’t want this club to be in a mess, as we were, in the future.
“That’s brilliant because we couldn’t ask for a better group of owners. We couldn’t ask for a better chairman. And I am not saying that because I am the manager, I am saying it because they are the best people I have met. That’s the truth.
“I am impatient. I want to win. I am used to winning games. But it’s going to take time and I know that isn’t what the fans want to hear but it is the truth and I have always said I’d be honest with them.”
Expectations were unquestionably raised during the summer months after Evatt’s arrival when eye-catching signings like Eoin Doyle and Antoni Sarcevic helped convince bookmakers to install Wanderers as the title favourites.
Those lofty targets were hardly played down inside the camp, either, but asked whether those predictions of silverware did the team any favours in the longer term, Evatt added: “We can say that – but you have to. What’s the point in being in a division or a competition if you not trying to win it?
“If you don’t want to be, or think you can be the best, then what’s the point in turning up?
“What is the point in running in a race if you think you are going to finish last? There isn’t one.
“You should want to win everything you do and sometimes it’s mental messaging. I want the players to start believing that because they don’t at the minute.
“To be the best, to be a good team, to be a top individual you have to believe you are good at what you do. And they are lacking in confidence and belief. So mental messaging suggests you should reinforce the positivity to make them want and feel that. Too many don’t at the moment.”
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Faced with mounting questions about the club’s poor start to the campaign, the Whites head coach admits bedding down more than 20 summer signings in a new style of play will take longer than first expected.
Promotion talk was rife in the summer and Evatt wants his players to continue to aim high even after registering just two wins from the first 11 games.
But he has also urged supporters to be realistic about the money spent in the summer and how the mass turnover of players has affected the early season form.
Asked whether Bolton’s owners, Football Ventures, shared his view, he told The Bolton News: “Myself and the ownership group are very, very close and tight. They have invested in me and see a lot of good in me, which is great. I have their trust and their backing.
“I will do all I can to make sure I repay that faith, simple as that.
“They understand the project, they understand the journey.
“We all want success because this club does deserve it more than most with what it has been through but a sense of perspective – we are not spending three, four, five or six million pounds. We’re under the salary cap and to put that figure into perspective, it would be a bottom six League Two budget last season.
“That isn’t because the owners won’t spend it, it is because there is a salary cap and the fact we want this club to be sustainable. We don’t want this club to be in a mess, as we were, in the future.
“That’s brilliant because we couldn’t ask for a better group of owners. We couldn’t ask for a better chairman. And I am not saying that because I am the manager, I am saying it because they are the best people I have met. That’s the truth.
“I am impatient. I want to win. I am used to winning games. But it’s going to take time and I know that isn’t what the fans want to hear but it is the truth and I have always said I’d be honest with them.”
Expectations were unquestionably raised during the summer months after Evatt’s arrival when eye-catching signings like Eoin Doyle and Antoni Sarcevic helped convince bookmakers to install Wanderers as the title favourites.
Those lofty targets were hardly played down inside the camp, either, but asked whether those predictions of silverware did the team any favours in the longer term, Evatt added: “We can say that – but you have to. What’s the point in being in a division or a competition if you not trying to win it?
“If you don’t want to be, or think you can be the best, then what’s the point in turning up?
“What is the point in running in a race if you think you are going to finish last? There isn’t one.
“You should want to win everything you do and sometimes it’s mental messaging. I want the players to start believing that because they don’t at the minute.
“To be the best, to be a good team, to be a top individual you have to believe you are good at what you do. And they are lacking in confidence and belief. So mental messaging suggests you should reinforce the positivity to make them want and feel that. Too many don’t at the moment.”
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