The irony wasn’t lost on Ian Evatt that after 87 minutes of trying to pass their way through the Burton Albion wall, it was the route one approach that finally got Wanderers on the scoreboard last night.

Bolton had not beaten Burton in seven previous attempts, and an eighth looked certain to be added to the list after Sam Hughes headed the Brewers ahead in the final quarter of the game.

Evatt sent on three replacements, one of which, Amadou Bakayoko, eventually grabbed his first league goal since April, volleying past Ben Garratt after latching on to a booming ball over the top from his own keeper, James Trafford.

Another, Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, would supply the winner deep into stoppage time.

The Bolton boss made reference to his “lucky” substitutions in his post-match interview – but did so knowingly.

“I say lucky subs tongue in cheek because we won a game on Saturday from substitutions and we’ve done it again tonight,” he said. “There isn’t any luck in it, we’ve got good players and we’re able to change games, we’re able to impact games and those two have come on tonight and impacted it.

“For all being an attractive football team and we want to play from back to front, I think it’s really important we recognise we scored from a long kick from Traff and a second phase set play tonight. Against those types of teams with that much disruptions, sometimes it might be that way for us, but we found a way to win and good teams do that.”

Evatt praised the way the crowd stayed behind Wanderers – their frustration vented only occasionally, and more so at the timewasting tactics of the opposition.

His team now firmly embedded in the top six, five points ahead of seventh-placed Exeter City with a game in hand, Evatt feels his team are rewarding the fans’ patience.

“It’s huge because we’ve taken a bit of criticism and unbelievably I think we’re fifth in the league, but we feel like we’ve been criticised, sometimes justly, sometimes unjustly, and we’ve showed a massive amount of togetherness this last couple of games,” he said, referencing another breathless victory at Accrington on Saturday. “To win games from the positions that we were in both of those games is really good and it means the team are very much together.

“To be honest, I’ve got to say that the crowd were really patient. They stuck with us, they could see what the game plan was, they were getting frustrated with that but not with us, and when you stay together, you create real positivity and energy and I thought they did that with the last 20 minutes with the players and the players repaid them with two very important goals.”

Having waited for so long to make the breakthrough, Bodvarsson’s winner in the 98th minute felt especially important to most of the 16,000-plus supporters who had stayed to watch the game to its conclusion.

“To be honest, we could all feel it coming and when you get that momentum swing and the energy and the belief that the players have got, it’s fantastic. It would have been easy for the players to sulk and back out after Kieran’s chance, after Conor’s chance, but they didn’t,” Evatt added.

“They kept focused and believing and they kept on pushing forwards. They got the ball out of the net after the first one, reset it, went again, asked more questions and eventually they blew the house down which was great.”