IAN Evatt looked back at the wreckage of Saturday’s 4-0 capitulation against Huddersfield Town and pleaded: “That’s not my team!”

The Bolton boss insisted his players were unrecognisable as they slumped into the relegation zone with a third straight defeat.

Many fans filed for the exits after the Terriers extended their lead to three and four midway through the second half, voting with their feet after a performance Evatt felt was the most disappointing in his tenure.

After the final whistle, the manager said he would seek talks with Sharon Brittan and the board this weekend to assess his next move, fuelling intense speculation that it could be the end of his four-year spell in the dugout.

But should that be the case, Evatt said defiantly that he nor his team should be judged solely on a wretched 90 minutes.

“Like always, I’ll get the blame and take the responsibility, it’s me who made those decisions out there today. I will take it like a man, like I always try to do,” he said.

“That is not what we have created. It isn’t my team. That should not represent what I am and who I am as a manager.”

Wanderers had stayed on level terms up to the 44th minute when Josh Koroma headed home Callum Marshall’s cross, after which their performance deteriorated dramatically.

The fourth goal – a howling error from goalkeeper Nathan Baxter – summed up a day which piled significant pressure on the manager’s shoulders.

“Second half, physically, we just got dominated,” he said. “I think it sums up the fourth goal, I coach them to do that. Yes, we want them to play out from the back but not to the detriment of ourselves like that.

“Everyone’s head is scrambled, Nathan’s head is scrambled, trying to do the right things, but our decision making is completely off. It comes from the negativity we are all feeling right now.”

Evatt has stuck to his belief that the team should play out from the back, a policy which was exposed brutally for the fourth goal. But he says that changing to a more direct style of football is impossible with the personnel he has recruited over the past few seasons.

He said: “How can we change when we have got no physicality at the top end of the pitch? We have recruited to be technical and to build and that requires confidence. But if you are going to tell us to start going direct and being risk free we haven’t got the physicality in there to do it.

“We tried in the second half with Victor but aerially that isn’t his game. His hold-up play is really good but he’s not like a Kiefer Moore, Peter Crouch, that big number nine, the guys they brought on. You could see the physical difference between the two teams and it showed on the pitch.”