Bolton 0-2 Exeter

Exeter boss Caldwell's pride after 'really low moment' last year

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Exeter boss Gary Caldwell was proud to bounce back from a “really low moment” at Wanderers a year later.

The Grecians were thrashed 7-0 at the Toughsheet Community Stadium last November but left with all three points this time around thanks to goals from Kamari Doyle and Millenic Alli either side of half time.

“It feels really good,” Caldwell said after the final whistle. “To win any game at this level is difficult.

“But to come to this stadium after last year, where we were when we played here, it was a really low moment for the team and for the club.

“This group of players have quality but today I think what won us the game was our mentality.

“Bravery at times in possession, I still think we can do better second half and we will work on that.

“But the commit to run and fight for each other… I questioned the players last week and said we need more out of possession, we need to be a tougher team to play against. I thought every single player on the pitch was outstanding today.”

More than 22,000 supporters were in attendance as Wanderers held their first Community Day of the season.

“We spoke a lot about the stadium and how we control the crowd, I thought we did that,” Caldwell added.

“When you go in at half time and there are boos around the stadium, you are doing something right.

“We spoke about the start of the second half and how they would come out in a more positive frame of mind.

“We had to still play on the front foot and set pieces are something we have done a lot of work on over pre-season.”

Exeter had suffered back-to-back defeats ahead of their trip to Lancashire, and Caldwell was delighted with their response against the Whites.

“I think a lot of credit has to go to the players, tactically. The information they are receiving, how they carried that out was outstanding,” the manager insisted.

“We always want to dominate possession and create overloads. Bolton gave us a problem today, they have played 3-4-2-1 all season.

“I think they probably thought about the game last year, the two nines and wide eights hurting us, and tried to go with that again.

“But the players can work it out, we had a stoppage with Joe (Whitworth) when he went down and managed to tweak a few things that allowed us to be better in the game out of possession.”

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Bolton Wanderers 0-2 Exeter City - Ian Evatt match reaction

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Ian Evatt admitted Wanderers’ performance in their home defeat to Exeter City was “unacceptable” – but insists his team will improve in time.

A superb first-half free-kick from Kamari Doyle and a close-range effort from Millenic Alli after the half time break was enough to help the Grecians avenge a seven-goal drubbing at the Toughsheet last November.

Wanderers did hit the woodwork in the second half through Aaron Collins but Evatt admitted they came nowhere near the same levels as they had shown in their Carabao Cup win against Shrewsbury in midweek.

“It was below our level, below our standards,” he said. “We lack rhythm at the moment, we look tired, fatigued.

“I don’t think 2-0 was a fair reflection of the game. They have scored two set pieces, one brilliant free kick and a corner, and the second one in particular hurts because we didn’t give ourselves a chance to build any momentum second half.

“It is a tough period but as I said earlier in the week it isn’t unexpected. I did feel like we were going to suffer a little bit because we were not 100 per cent fit, we have not got players ready and up to speed.

“Things are challenging but we need to stick together and work hard post international break to reset and go again.”

Wanderers sit 18th in the table, with one win from their first four league games.

They will face Barrow without a handful of international players in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy on Tuesday night and then have a free weekend to try and turn their fortunes around before a home clash with Huddersfield Town on September 14.

Asked about the poor start, Evatt said: “It is not what we wanted, certainly. In a football season you are always going to have difficult and tough periods and we’re in one right now.

“We don’t seem to get any rhythm. We take a step forward on Tuesday at Shrewsbury and then a step back. We have to understand why, to resolve, and to find some solutions.

“The players, myself, the one thing you have to do when you are trying to find a way out of these things is to look inside to find a way out. That is what we have to do now.

“We had 19 shots and three on target, that is simply not good enough. We had chances at good moments to score and get ourselves back into the game but we didn’t take them and with the players we have got we need to be better.”

Evatt spent much of the second half in the dugout, a ploy he revealed was more about keeping himself out of trouble than anything else.

“I was stood there at the start of second half but sometimes it is important that I don’t let my own frustrations boil over,” he said. “Sometimes that can have a negative impact on the team and with the fourth official. The team have to own that second half, so I decided to calm myself down. It wasn’t going to help anyone with frustrations boiling over.

“We know that is unacceptable, we know that is not our standard, we have to work hard to do better.”

Wanderers fans voiced their frustration at the final whistle, a reaction Evatt found difficult to argue against.

He added: “I understand the frustration, this is a football club with huge expectations. What we have done since we have been here is win consistently, so everyone expects us to win and when we don’t people ask questions. We have to be man enough to front those and answer them, we have done in the past and we will work really hard to respond again.”

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For the first time ever we left early and normally we would wait till the full time whistle.

We couldn't get out quick enough after that dross was served up yesterday.

Evatt should have gone after the playoff final last season IMO.

I've not been in the Evatt out camp at all until now but it is very frustrating watching us play, not just this season but a lot of last season as well. Evatt is convinced in his style of football and yes when we play well it looks great but more other than not now it just doesn't work. Teams have worked us ourt let the back 3 have the ball and mark Sheehan out of the game and we have no clue what to do.

Santos is a prime example, a great defender but he is the main culprit in slowing the game down and passing sideways or backwards.

Perhaps it is time for a new voice, Evatt seems a beaten man at the moment and just rolls out excuse after excuse.

karlypants wrote:Has Sharon got the balls to give Evatt the boot or even the funds to replace him...

At the end of the day it is Sharon/FV's call and it's blindingly obvious (to me at least) that they haven't found the money they've spent on fees and wages for all the new players we brought in over the summer just to sack Evatt after just FOUR games and/or change the system we play.

If we take a moment to think about it, we / Evatt basically had certain automatic promotion last season (and blew it) and then lost to the massive underdogs in the Play Off Final - my point here being that we have a side more than capable of challenging for automatic promotion again - in that we've lost no one significant (Paris apart) from last season's squad AND in addition spent a significant amount of money (for us at least) since to strengthen it even more.

What seems to gone wrong as far as I can tell is the the 'patch' he came up with to 'fix' the perceived weakness of being easily bullied by more physical and intimidating teams (by pushing the wingbacks up the field plus playing with two number 10's to support Charles), clearly has not worked (yet).

Will it work, I don't know.

Clearly he's committed to pressing on with it - he's spent a lot of money the club simply doesn't have, to bring in players to specifically fulfil the roles in the new system.

AND up to now, the main side-effects of the change seems to have had a negative impact on how Sheehan played compared to what he had been doing last season.

I'm pretty sure that was not part of Evatt's plan when he decide to play his new tippy tappy Mark II masterplan.

We are only FOUR games into the season so it is far, far to early for all this knee jerk reaction and anger that many folk seem to have - it's just ridiculous really - what could a new manager do now anyway - they can't sign anyone (apart from free agents) until next years window, so will have to play more or less the same style we do now with exactly the same players that we have!

I can't see Sharon throwing Evatt under the bus, and I can't see Evatt walking just four games into the new season - so I don't see much point for anyone to get so het up about things they have absolutely no control over (or even a say in).

I suspect Evatt will be his usual pig headed self and play much the same eleven for the next few league matches and only then if results haven't picked up, start to change the personnel around a bit more - maybe even drop Sheehan for Matete as Wanderlust so badly wants.

It might also be though after a few more games tippy tappy II suddenly clicks and we start winning again with the players in the team now!

Who knows but I suspect Evatt simply won't get sacked, quit, or alter his views and throw tippy tappy II  under the the bus after just 4 games - I mean do you really, does anyone?

Well obviously they do, it's all over social media but realistically in the 'real world' I just can't see it.

As for Evatt saying the players were tired...



What he explained though was that the players were 'not fully prepared' - which is another thing entirely.


“You have to look at the context,” he said. “Players we have signed haven’t had full pre-seasons because they have been waiting to exit and we have been reliant on the parent club making those calls on when they can leave.

“We have had players who have missed pre-season because of injuries, players who have missed games because they were injured last season, there are very few who are 100 per cent today.

“We have kids on the bench because of numbers but you can’t just keep recruiting players, we have got 24 now and there is space for one more.

“We have to accept the fact we are missing a big portion of our team and that we’ll get them back at the end of the next international break. We have to use this one as a reset and to go again.”

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I am going to come back to the point I made immediately after the play off final. Evatt is a choker. You can't blame the players when it happens twice on the trot with different playing personnel. I realise we are not exactly flush with money and so depend on loans etc to put a good squad together but for two seasons we had squads eminently capable of taking us up automatically and in a position to do so until the last few games. Then we 'slipped up' to land in the play offs and promptly choked on both occasions. Even if we can't afford to pay him off I would still look at putting Evatt on "Gardening Leave" as we did with Gary Megson and find a replacement who doesn't throw away outstanding positions the way Evatt has done not once but TWICE now. He has to go or I genuinely fear that this season will be a fight against relegation let alone be anywhere near promotion.

I think there is still a hangover from Wembley which is why it was crucial we started off well this season and we haven't which increases the pressure.

I saw on twitter that someone had worked out our results since January and it worked out we would only be around 10th in the table, so just shows you how poor we have been since then. All those games in hand were the problem i think.

Norpig wrote:I think there is still a hangover from Wembley which is why it was crucial we started off well this season and we haven't which increases the pressure.

I saw on twitter that someone had worked out our results since January and it worked out we would only be around 10th in the table, so just shows you how poor we have been since then. All those games in hand were the problem i think.

The problem was that we played the whole season without a full squad size - we had space on our roster for more players but left them empty (I assume that was because FV simply didn't have the money at the time for all the wages) and that we (FV and/or Evatt?) continued to prioritise cup runs instead (and even more games to play over the course of the season).  They clearly wanted to win the Mickey Mouse Cup again.

Fwiw I stated around the beginning of 2024 that we needed to bail out of the cups ASAP as we would end up running out of steam, get players injured or sent off in games we simply didn't have to be playing, have less player recovery time between league matches and simply didn't have to depth of squad to successfully complete a season with 60 plus matches in it.

In short the squad simply burnt itself out - we played players who were injured (the wrist injury to Baxter in particular, Dempsey playing with a bad back, etc).

To be fair we nearly did get promotion but I've no doubt the unnecessary cup runs and additional games we therefore had to play (playing our strongest sides instead of the reserves) ultimately cost us dearly in the end.

Evatt / FV thought we would do the double - we ended up with nothing.