IAN Evatt has rubbished suggestion that Saturday’s blank at Cambridge United highlighted the need to sign a striker before the close of the transfer window.

Wanderers had 13 attempts at goal at the Abbey Stadium but put just one on target – nevertheless, only MK Dons have scored more goals from their first four games in League One.

Front man Eoin Doyle has scored twice in his first four league starts, yet concern exists among supporters that the Irishman does not have adequate cover.

Evatt says his recruitment in the next 24 hours will not be shaped by the Cambridge result.

Asked what he made of the clamour to sign a new front man, the Bolton boss said: “It is nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

“It’s not about having a striker. We go from scoring three in the first two games and conceding three and needing a centre half to then when we don’t score one game, we need a striker.

“You can’t be emotional like that about football and you can’t make rash decisions based on one off games.

“We’re creating more than enough chances. I’m seeing we’re at the top of the division in most of the forward stats, so from my perspective, it’s not about that.

“It’s about how we get to those critical opportunities and critical chances and Saturday, we didn’t create enough of them for the amount of possession we had.

“But in those types of games, the first goal is always vital. We conceded a really poor one and then gave them something to hang on to. We had opportunities to score. We had one big opportunity second half to score through Dapo and if that goes in, the game’s very, very different. But when teams camp in like that, you don’t create chance after chance after chance.

“But the critical ones you do create, you need to take them and we didn’t.”

According to stats from The92.com, Wanderers have the highest shot-to-goal ratio in the league at 0.53 per game, which puts them marginally ahead of Wycombe (0.44) and Wigan (0.43).

Evatt believes the attacking problems which emerged at Cambridge were not simply down to his front three.

“We need to be better in the final third,” he said. “We have to unlock doors better, have more quality, more movement, more desire. We didn’t show that enough on Saturday and it isn’t just the forward players.

“It is the midfield players, the full-backs’ crossing positions and the crosses they were putting in weren’t good enough on Saturday, so we have to be better, simple as that.”