WANDERERS have enough firepower to achieve their promotion target in League One this season, says Ian Evatt.

The Whites raise the curtain on their League One campaign tomorrow against Lincoln City with a burning ambition to be playing Championship football at this time next year.

Last season’s play-off semi-final defeat at Barnsley arrived after a campaign in which they finished fifth but scored 63 times – the ninth highest total in the division.

Evatt has largely stayed faithful with the attacking players he had at his disposal last term, where Dion Charles ironically became the first Bolton player in more than two decades to top 20 goals in a single season.

Doubts have been cast on whether those same players can lead Wanderers to a top two spot but Evatt remains confident.

“Last season we didn’t score enough goals but had a defensive record that should have got automatic promotion and in recent times we have been one of the only teams in the whole EFL to have under-performed our XG,” he said.

“It isn’t for a lack of creating chances, we just haven’t taken them often enough and that can sometimes be an anomaly.

“We have a good squad of players and I believe we have a good forward line – five options or six if you include Carlos who can play as a striker. They have that responsibility on their shoulders to score more but we do have to share that throughout the team.

“We have a 20-goal-a-season striker in Dion Charles for the first time in many years at Bolton but how many clubs around the globe have two? Not many. So I don’t buy into the fact that we need more strikers, more this, more that, we just need our strikers to perform and I believe they will.

Lincoln have not lost a game on the opening day of the season in 12 years and have been tipped by some to be one of the dark horses in the promotion race themselves.

Evatt wants to make a winning start in front of what is likely to be a packed house at the Toughsheet Community Stadium and he has seen recent signs on the training ground which suggest his squad is in the right mood too.

“I think from a player’s perspective – and I was one for a long time – the opening game of the season is pivotal and poignant in their mind but it isn’t really for me now, this is just the first of 46 opportunities to get three points,” he said.

“Selecting a team is going to be difficult on Saturday and it is going to be increasingly difficult going forwards because I think we have a very good squad of players which is extremely well-balanced.

“I think we have absolutely improved and some of the training today has been at a level that I haven’t seen before. The new recruits have helped with that but the ones who have been with us for a while continuously step up whenever they are asked a question.

“Every transfer window players are asked questions because managers want to strengthen their team, it is simple. You can either stop and sulk, look to leave, or you can embrace the challenge and go again and I’m pleased to say the majority of ours have stepped up to the plate every time they have had a question asked of them.”