Bolton Wanderers boss Ian Evatt has definitive summer ahead

These are interesting times indeed for Bolton Wanderers, who are now contemplating the reality of a fourth successive year at this level of football for only the third time in their history.

Although there was a short dip, salvaged by Jimmy Armfield in the early seventies, the only prolonged fallow period outside the top two divisions took place between the cash-strapped early eighties and the revival years under Phil Neal and Bruce Rioch in the early nineties, and were separated by a solitary season in the doldrums of the old Division Four.

If football moves in cycles, then we are currently somewhere in the middle ground between the latter two Burnden Park custodians, one a man remembered for knocking on the door of promotion but never getting through, the other for taking those solid foundations and reinventing a club in the space of three short years, leading to Premier League football.

Ian Evatt won’t want his name to be entered into the history books as a support act, like Neal, as someone who did all the dirty work but who got none of the credit. He now has two unsuccessful tilts at the play-offs, so the season ahead promises to be his chance to break free of the regular comparisons.

For 85 per cent of their existence, Wanderers have occupied a place in the top two divisions in England, that, as much as anything, has contributed to a general feeling of displacement in the lower half of the Football League.

Of course, the club’s most recent fall from grace was accelerated by financial factors and nefarious ownership. Had Football Ventures not stepped in to snatch it back from the edge of the cliff five years ago, there is every chance that Bolton would have gone the way of their neighbours Bury and been forced to start all over again. Wanderers’ fans have always recognised the debt they owe on that front.

Evatt and Co had to start from scratch, an unenviable feat in the midst of a pandemic, but some four years, 92 players, 226 matches, 115 victories and one promotion later we have reached a convergence between expectation and achievement. Some may argue, in fact, that Bolton have crossed the line into under-achievement, given the resources they now possess.

Missing out, first on automatic promotion, then against Oxford United in the final itself was a damaging ego blow. Evatt – and some of his players – were quoted during the campaign as believing Bolton were the “best team in the league.” And as anyone who has dared venture on to social media in the last fortnight will attest, the rest of the footballing fraternity took notes.

But they were not hollow words. The manager and his team are fuelled by confidence, borderline arrogance even, and the belief that they were the best around was very real. And Evatt’s wholehearted faith in his players and his footballing philosophy continued right to the very last of the 99 minutes at Wembley.

That loyalty may well have come at a cost in some cases. His parting words in the capital about considering change have been interpreted many ways in the quiet fortnight which has followed but the extent to which he freshens the squad may now be the most important decision in his time at the helm.

So too may be his response to criticism over tactical flexibility. Over the course of four years we have witnessed changes in the team’s shape but last season’s wholesale shift to 3-1-4-2 has stuck, with rare exceptions. Football website Whoscored.com lists the only exception to a five-man midfield as the Carabao Cup victory against Barrow, in which the starting line-up was billed as a 3-4-3.

Confronted with the oft-repeated ‘lack of Plan B’ argument, Evatt has often cited an ability to change in-game as a strength. He has altered the balance of his central midfielders on numerous occasions to take into consideration opposition weaknesses. Likewise, he has used different types of strikers, depending on how directly he felt his team needed to move the ball to the front line.

Those nuances aside, larger scale formation changes have been rare. Even as the play-off final drifted away from their grasp earlier this month, the response appeared to be to change personnel within the system, rather than the system itself.

Evatt remains adamant that his plan can take the club out of League One and, but for 90 poor minutes against Oxford, he could have had the evidence to back up his argument. On such fine margins reputations are built and destroyed.

The manager can point towards four seasons of improving the league position as proof that his methods are working, although a third-placed finish last term means that anything other than automatic promotion would ruin the direction of the graph.

He has also cited examples of other larger clubs who have been stranded at this level, including those like Ipswich Town and Sunderland who boasted bigger playing budgets than his own.

As the Championship’s finances lurched from the absurd to the ridiculous, League One has also become a tar pit for clubs with rich reputations who may have fallen on hard times. Portsmouth – deserved winners of the division in 2023/24 – had been chained to this level of football for seven long seasons before finally getting it right.

In every case, clubs who yearned for promotion from this level have also changed managers. Sheffield United went through five different names, Sunderland tried four, Pompey three before finally going up. Wanderers are, in that sense, an anomaly.

Holding firm and sticking with Evatt and his team is just as important a decision as any that will be made this summer. Though Sharon Brittan rightly highlighted to parliament recently the outrageous demands put upon owners at Championship level, it should not be underestimated that as a League One club, that investment still equates to a hefty chunk of cash – more than £5m in the last set of accounts.

Bolton remain a very well-supported club with a lustrous footballing history but also a very expensive operation to run, and so it would be no great surprise to see the sale of some of the playing assets accrued over the last couple of seasons.

The expectation will not change. Wanderers fans will still be clamouring to see their club challenging at the top end of the table from August onward regardless of how competitive the division becomes.

It may be, however, that the disappointment suffered at Wembley changes perceptions, and that any undue entitlement has been knocked out of the squad and its supporters.

Less than a fortnight after yellow ribbons were tied to the trophy at Wembley, Bolton must move on and prove themselves with actions, not words.