Ian Evatt believes cool heads will prevail as Wanderers prepare to take on promotion rivals Derby at Pride Park.

A positive result would give the Whites a big boost heading into the international break before returning for the final block of fixtures.

While Evatt knows it is an important game, the Bolton boss insists Saturday’s result will not be season-defining for either side.

“We know what we need to do and we know what is important. To be able to do that, we need to remain calm," he told The Bolton News.

“Of course, with football you have to play with emotion - there is no denying that - but you have to control that emotion and turn it into a positive. We will be ready and we want to back up what we did on Tuesday.

“For me, it is another game of football and another opportunity, and we will do the best we can to try and win it, as we do with every game.”

There will be a fierce atmosphere at Pride Park, with more than 31,000 tickets already sold, and Evatt hopes the officials will also manage to keep their cool despite the noise from the stands.

“Hopefully, we are not speaking about the officials,” he added. “I thought Sunny (Sukhvir Gill) was excellent on Tuesday and for the majority of the game was unnoticed, which speaks volumes for the way he refereed the game.

“Marc Edwards was the fourth official at Derby, I know Marc quite well. He is a good referee so hopefully we are not speaking about him at the end of the game.

“From a manager’s perspective, and I am sure Warney (Paul Warne) will say the same thing, we just want the best team to win and that be the reason why a team wins.

“We will go into the game and show calm heads. We are a different type of team to what they are. They are excellent at what they do and have some very good, experienced players.

“Warney has experience of getting out of this league, he knows what it takes. We are finding our way and just need to be us. If we are us, it gives us a good chance of getting a result.”

Wanderers enter the fixture in high spirits following their dominant victory against Oxford in midweek.

“I think that was just us saying ‘hi’ again and waving,” Evatt reflected. “The players wanted to do that and make a statement.

“When we are in that form, we are a hard team to stop and we just need to try and replicate that as many times as we can.

“It was a good performance but it is only one performance. We have got eight more to string together to get where we want to get to and that starts on Saturday.

"As I said – win, lose or draw – it is not all done on Saturday but we know the magnitude of the game and want to give a good performance.”