Leyton Orient 1-2 Bolton Wanderers - The Big Match Verdict

Accusations of Bolton’s soft centre have followed them throughout Ian Evatt’s four years at the helm and intensified after their Wembley catastrophe against Oxford United just 12 short weeks ago.

While opposition managers and players regularly throw out lavish praise for the style of football played by the Whites, that flattery normally arrives after the team in question has frustrated the hell out of them for 90 minutes and grabbed points most would feel undeserved.

So often last season, Evatt was left talking about chances that had gone begging, games which had been controlled but domination that had gone unpunished. And many felt a lack of tactical flexibility was at the heart of the problem.

One game into the new season, one Bolton hope will end with them finally climbing out of the League One tar pit and back into the Championship after six long years away, they may have made a crucial breakthrough.

Victory was achieved at Leyton Orient not with commanding spells of possession nor with especially free-flowing attacking football. Bolton had to get their hands dirty and now appear to have the necessary players to cope with a different way of approaching the type of game this level so often throws at you.

When Jack Iredale’s slip allowed Charlie Kelman to cancel out Dion Charles’s eighth minute opener there was a sense of ‘we’ve seen this one before’ echoing around the Wanderers fanbase.

Leyton Orient are an inherently awkward team. They have physical presence, enterprising set pieces and are usually aggressive from minute one. And they had managed to strangle Bolton’s midfield to the point where they too had to play over the press and go direct.

By half time the grumbling was seismic. Pre-season had been about new formations, an experimental style of play, but the Whites were being dogged by familiar problems and struggling to make their way out of the mess.

But an unprecedented spending spree this summer has left Evatt with options he simply didn’t have last season when this sort of conundrum came his way. Instead of replacing like for like, willing his players to find a gear they simply hadn’t reached to that point, he brought on some heavy artillery in John McAtee, Jay Matete, Victor Adeboyejo, Klaidi Lolos and Jordi Osei-Tutu and was able to wrestle back momentum they had not enjoyed since Charles’s early strike.

Adeboyejo scored with nearly his first touch, reward for what had been an excellent pre-season. The Nigerian striker could consider himself unlucky not to have started ahead of Charles, given his form, but reacted in exactly the way his manager would have wanted.

That the cavalry was able to make such an impact was mainly down to the goalkeeping heroics of Nathan Baxter, who had pulled off a string of excellent saves to keep the O’s at bay, particularly down the right where Kelman had tormented Iredale and exploited space left behind the ultra-attacking Szabolcs Schön.

Baxter reserved his best save for the very end – a full-length fingertip to push Kelman’s curling shot around his post and end any debate about who would be awarded man of the match.

Some of Bolton’s second-half substitute cameos deserve a mention, however, as they maximised their time on the pitch to leave Evatt with some thinking to do ahead of Wrexham’s visit to the Toughsheet Stadium next week.

Leyton Orient's Zech Obiero battles with Bolton Wanderers' Eoin Toal (Image: CameraSport - Hannah Fountain)

McAtee, courted by the Welsh club and offered an eye-watering contract, stepped into one of the two supporting-striker roles effortlessly. His name had been bouncing around the away stand for a full 10 minutes before he replaced Scott Arfield and he wasted no time ingratiating himself to his new supporters, winning possession back several times deep in Orient territory.

Matete also looked a good fit. Josh Sheehan had not been given the time nor space to play his natural game so once the Sunderland loanee stepped in, his more defensive nature helped tip the scales back in Bolton’s favour.

Evatt did not have any central defenders named on the bench, Gethin Jones and Will Forrester still injured, and Chris Forino pencilled in for his debut against Mansfield in the League Cup on Tuesday night. Iredale’s struggles against Kelman needed to be addressed, however, so he improvised by bringing on Osei-Tutu as the right wing-back, moving Josh Dacres-Cogley to centre-half.

Necessity being the mother of invention, the change worked well. And given the number of jibes aimed at the Wanderers boss post play-off final, it is only right that his substitutions and tactical shifts in this 90 minutes are highlighted and celebrated.

Baxter’s refusal to concede a second time earned him the headlines, and deservedly so, yet the story of this game was also one of options. Very few sides in this division have the resources now available to Evatt and it will be a new challenge for him to keep players content. Equally, the size of his squad now makes departures almost inevitable before the close of the summer window, and a few may now question how many games they are likely to play with so much competition around.

Wanderers finished last season with a handful of their players operating way below their best, patched up to stave off injury. Bringing in seven new signings this summer seems to be a reaction, and if the club can avoid the wretched bad luck they suffered at the start of the year losing the likes of Baxter, Santos, Charles and Adeboyejo, there is every reason to believe they can compete again at the top of the table.

We wondered what fight would be left in the Whites after Wembley but on first viewing there is a renewed desire to put things right. And long may it continue.

Ricardo Santos beats Dan Agyei in the air at Leyton Orient (Image: CameraSport - Hannah Fountain)