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Ian Evatt has explained his need to change a winning side in the 3-1 home defeat to Oxford United.
The Wanderers boss brought in Josh Sheehan, MJ Williams, Kieran Lee and Jack Iredale for Saturday’s game in what the manager felt were necessary alterations to the line-up which started the 2-1 win against Burton Albion a few days beforehand.
Evatt says Oxford’s high-pressing style meant changes were necessary to preserve energy levels in his midfield but he accepts his team ended up playing too direct to cause Oxford problems.
“Physically it takes energy to make comebacks, but more mentally fatigued because we’ve had to put a lot into it to win those two games,” he said of results against Burton and Accrington. “We haven’t won them on our quality, we’ve won them on character, energy and belief really.
“We needed to make changes against, in my opinion, the most energetic team in the league, and if you don’t match their energy, you’re in trouble. If you don’t do that and we don’t show the belief and bravery in possession that we can, then you’re in a spot of bother.
“They (Oxford) are full man for man press. They left two v two at the back, they went man for man, they pushed right on us and rather than us being brave and backing ourselves to find solutions, we ended up playing too long.”
Evatt explained where he felt his side’s approach against Oxford had stuttered in midfield and then how the U’s third goal had killed the game stone dead.
“What we did do is play long into two five foot eight, five foot nine strikers against two six foot four, six foot five centre-backs, especially first half, and we then lost the first contacts which is inevitable if we’re playing that type of football and then we lost the seconds as well because the team was a bit disjointed,” he said.
“We were showing for the ball in midfield because particularly Kieran and Josh are creative players, that’s not their game to run and win second balls. If we’re going to play those, we need to be super brave in possession and back their quality but we didn’t do that.
“Second half, we conceded a goal far too early so we lacked the time to gather a head of steam up and everything we spoke about at half-time. Then we start to rally and get into it and we get a good goal, a well worked one, and it looks like it’s on again, but it wasn’t to be.
“It was another really poor goal to concede, whether it’s a foul or not on Traff I don’t know, but what I will say is we have to protect him better. We can’t allow bodies around him.
“We have to be strong, we have to be physical and we have to clear the area for him to come and take the ball. If you look at their keeper, he was coming and claiming things really comfortably with no pressure because they did a really good job of protecting him. I think we need to protect Traff better.”
Referee Ollie Yates came in for a rough reception from the Bolton fans throughout the game but Evatt refused to be drawn to any great degree on his opinion of the official’s performance.
“I’d rather not speak about referees, but for me, that performance wasn’t good enough,” he added.
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