IAN Evatt insists he will be taking the Papa John’s Trophy “very seriously” this season.

Wanderers made a positive start to their 2022/23 campaign against Crewe Alexandra on Tuesday night, with three late goals ensuring a 4-1 victory.

Last season they bowed out in the last 16 with a disappointing defeat at League Two Hartlepool United but Evatt believes his squad is better placed to do better this time around.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I think we spoke about this before the game, anytime you get a chance to play a cup final at Wembley you should try and take it with both hands because those are the moments in your football career that you remember.

“Your families want to come and see their kids play at Wembley Stadium and hopefully we’ve got a chance of doing that.

“You look at the other cup competitions, who wins the Carabao Cup every season and who wins the FA Cup every season, it’s always one of the big four predominantly and in this competition we’re one of the better teams in League One so we have to try and target it and we will do.

“We think we have got the squad capable of it. It is stronger again from last year and as you can see from tonight, we’re taking it very seriously.”

Evatt believes Wanderers’ patience was rewarded against Crewe, having dominated possession for most of the game.

Although the Whites had chances to lead the game either side of half time it was not until Dion Charles’s 78th minute strike that they managed to force their advantage.

“That’s down to the hard yards that we put in with the possession and the movement for 60, 70 minutes,” Evatt said. “People can’t chase the ball for that long and eventually they are going to get tired and then the spaces become bigger, the gaps become bigger.

“We can expose those spaces and I thought we did that really well the last 20 minutes.”

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