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Watching League One defenders being pestered by Dion Charles does not make Ian Evatt hanker after his own playing days.
A centre-half of some repute for Blackpool, Derby and Chesterfield, Evatt admits he would not have enjoyed playing against a player in Charles’s recent form for Wanderers.
Since signing from Accrington, the 26-year-old has become an instant favourite with the supporters and hit four goals in his last five games.
“The thing is with Dion, once you let the ball bounce, you are in a world of trouble,” said Evatt, having watched Akin Famewo do the same for Charlton in the lead-up to Tuesday’s opening goal.
“Against Charlton, and especially first half, we were slightly more direct at times, but if you’re having joy from it and they are so high up the pitch, why would you not utilise it?
“I keep saying to the players we are not a football team for vanity, we don’t do it to make ourselves look good. We do it for a purpose and if the game is giving you that ball in behind, knowing the strikers we now have in the team, why not use it?
“Why wouldn’t you utilise Dion’s pace, and that is exactly how we got the goal.
“It is just harassment, and it happened another couple of times (against Jason Pearce) where the defender initially got booked, and then where he could have had the second yellow card.
“That is all from Dion running and chasing lost causes, winning duels and being competitive and I was really pleased with that.”
While 6ft tall, Charles is by no means a target man – and Evatt believes his mixture of pace and power gives much more physical defenders problems, “He punches above his weight,” the manager said. “I would hate to play against him.
“He is like a mosquito that you just can’t get rid of, like those annoying flies in the summer where you’re having your food and enjoying it and no matter how many times you bat it away, it comes back for more.
“That’s exactly what Dion’s like and I wouldn’t like to play against him.”
Charles’s impact has not come as a surprise to Evatt, nor the coaching staff, who had picked him out as the long-term successor to Eoin Doyle well in advance of his arrival at the UniBol.
“I think he’s given us exactly what we thought he would,” Evatt said. “We worked really hard on recruitment and do a lot of due diligence and we know exactly what these players are going to bring to us.
“Dion has done exactly what we thought he would. He took time to get his fitness up but that’s why we had some short-term pain with taking him off early in games and trying to keep him in one piece while his sharpness comes back, but now he’s all systems go and we’ve got to keep him in one piece because he’s a big, big player for us.”
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