IAN Evatt has stopped short of declaring the automatic promotion race a case of ‘Birmingham City plus one’.

Though the big-spending Blues moved four points clear at the top with their victory against Wanderers on Tuesday night, and also have a game in hand on their nearest rivals Wrexham, the Bolton boss says it is far too early to crown them champions in waiting.

For most the season is at the quarter-way stage but Evatt predicts that this will be a closer-run fight than many are expecting.

“Birmingham will be happy with where it is at right now – but there is a long way to go, I don’t think you can say they are completely out of the equation at the minute,” he told The Bolton News.

“They are a very talented team and they should be, they have some brilliant individuals who are paid Premier League money so you’d expect them to keep going. But we have seen stranger things happen and when winter football comes around you have to find different ways and different solutions and it will be interesting to see what they do. But I think they are a fantastic team and they are very well coached.”

Wanderers, like this weekend’s opponents Peterborough United, have designs on a top two spot. Both clubs currently find themselves off promotion pace and Evatt accepts their current mid-table residence is way below what is expected.

But with three league games left before the next international break, he is hoping to close the gap on second spot considerably, setting his side a target of securing seven points.

“I think second spot is wide open,” he said. “A number of teams will fancy their chances and will be targeting that, and we are one of them.

“Peterborough will be too but they have had an indifferent start, for them. No disrespect to the teams who are doing incredibly well at the top of the league but if you look at last season’s table we had teams like Exeter City who were top after 10 games but then didn’t win for 20-odd.

“That can happen quickly in this league, so I wouldn’t necessarily say that the teams up there at the moment will continue that. Ourselves and Peterborough are one of those who want and need to be up there, with the squad we have got and the money we have spent, but there is a long way to go. It’s tight and I think it will go down to the wire, Birmingham or not. Either way, second place and the play-off places are up for grabs for a lot of teams and we just need to take care of our own business.”

Wanderers hope to avoid the same fixture pile-up they experienced last season by rescheduling all their postponed games as early in the calendar as possible.

One of those matches will be at Stevenage on Tuesday night, which coupled with a positive result against Posh could see the Whites reel in the play-off positions.

“We are only 11 games in and the last seven we have only lost one and won five, we are in good form in terms of picking up points,” he said. “We know we need to make ground up but the table is condensed and compact.

“We have made the decision this season to try and fit them in as soon as possible so we don’t get too far behind, as we did last season. We had a problem last season where we were three, four, five games behind, which was far too much to make up in the second half of the season.

“If we can manage to fit them in earlier and get level with everyone else we will know better where we stand and what we have got to do.

“It is incredibly tight and I wouldn’t necessarily take any notice of where we are at the moment. There is a lot more to come from this group of players.

“Consistency wise we can get better but even against a very good team in Birmingham on Tuesday night we were in the game. Now we have to bounce back.”