IAN Evatt reckons Joel Dixon will have to deal with the criticism that comes his way after Tuesday night’s shock Papa John’s Trophy exit against Hartlepool United.

Wanderers crashed out of the competition against a youthful Pools side containing eight changes from their weekend stalemate in League Two against Oldham Athletic.

Dixon’s error which led directly to Matty Daly’s winning goal six minutes from time. And though Evatt believes his keeper will recover from the disappointment, he could not sugar coat the reaction he expected from the Bolton supporters.

“He has to bounce back and he will, but when you make mistakes in high profile sport and elite sport, you have acknowledge them, learn from them and take them on the chin,” Evatt told The Bolton News.

“He’s going to be criticised, I’m going to be criticised, the players are going to be criticised.

“We have to just keep going, keep our heads down, keep our focus, and move on to the next game.

“Take the goal out of it, I think there are large parts of tonight that we looked like our normal selves again, we looked like we moved the ball well, we looked like we had more energy, more speed to our play in difficult circumstances.

“We just have to be more clinical and ruthless in the final third and then not shoot ourselves in the foot like we did in the last 10 minutes.” Evatt admits there were cross words exchanged in the dressing room as the club bowed out of a competition which presented their only realistic chance of silverware this season.

“Yeah absolutely and rightly so because there’s no way we should have lost that game,” he said. “We’ve just shot ourselves in the foot once again. We need to be better, we need to improve quickly.”

Wanderers earned plaudits in defeat at Rotherham at the weekend but have otherwise been in a difficult run of fixtures with just one win in six.

Three successive postponed games meant the sorrow was spread across the festive period and Evatt accepts he now faces a challenge to turn form around in the New Year.

“This is our second game in four weeks,” he said. “It’s been difficult for us. We’ve had Covid issues, we’ve had injury issues, we’ve had lack of form issues.

“There have been some poor performances like Stockport away, Wigan at home, Fleetwood away but Saturday was a moral victory, but I’m sick of moral victories - I just want victories.

“We should be getting more results than what we’re getting at the moment and things need to change and we need to be better and we’re working really hard to make sure things they change.

“But we have to sometimes take all this on the chin. Joel has to but we all have to individually and they have to start holding each other accountable because that isn’t acceptable to lose a game in that fashion is criminal.”