IAN Evatt has paid tribute to the vital role his ‘lieutenants’ Ricardo Santos and Gethin Jones have played for Wanderers under his management.

Now captain and vice-captain of the club, Santos and Jones have been with Bolton since Evatt’s first summer at the UniBol.

Santos is expected to re-join the back three on Saturday after a one-game suspension, and the Wanderers boss is pleased to have his ‘leadership team’ back together for what he expects will be the toughest challenge of the season so far.

“Every manager needs lieutenants,” he said. “When the door is closed and there are four walls with no manager the messages need to remain the same, and they do that for me. Every club needs that and they do it superbly.

“Rico and Gethin lead by example. Their standards are impeccable and they understand what is required for everything, whether it is simple passing drills or the effort they put into training, and people feed off that.”

Santos has had a stop-start season to date and, says Evatt, goes into Saturday’s game determined to prove a point.

“He is frustrated with a few things. He had a bit of a foot issue, he had missed the end of last season so has played catch-up, then the red card was his biggest frustration. But it happens in football and, again, it is how you respond to adversity.

“For me, he is the best centre-back outside the Premier League. People might laugh at that statement but I hear it a lot in the game as well, coaches talking about his attributes and I think even Derek Adams spoke about it in his pre-match the other day. They know how big a player he is for us.

“Him not being there impacts the way we play. We can leave him there one v one for half the pitch and trust he can defend, there are not many who can.

“Will (Aimson) is another brilliant one v one defender and as you can see we try to recruit those types and commit men forward, keeping control by having the ball in the opposition half; having defenders who can run it pivotal to that.

“Rico is the captain of this club and we think the world of him. We are happy to have him back.

Jones’s role in the squad has also been well discussed of late, with a handful of players explaining how the former Everton defender has helped them settle into life at Bolton.

“There are different types of leaders now,” Evatt explained. “The old captain, scruff of the neck, shout, scream, demand, has kind of gone out of the game. Whether that is for the better or worse, I think it’s subjective and we’ll all have opinions on that.

“Young players respond to a different type of leadership and Gethin recognises that. He is a young man himself, only in his mid-20s, but he has developed and learned it, been through adversity himself. When he speaks, people listen, and the empathy he shows really helps with the younger players.

“Him and Rico as a leadership team have been brilliant for me. It is great that players are talking about how big a role they are playing.”