THOUGH Wanderers will carry the burden of defeat against Stockport County for at least a little while longer, Ian Evatt believes honest words in the aftermath could help his team in the long run.

Accountability has been a topic of discussion ever since the final whistle at Edgeley Park, where the sheer brutality of the score-line set back what had been an encouraging six weeks of recovery in League One.

From a position where the Whites could have gone fourth with a win against the Hatters, they find themselves fighting to get out of the proverbial doghouse, placed 11th in the table ahead of this weekend’s visit from Blackpool, and with a 20,000-strong support expecting immediate reparation.

A routine 2-1 win against Fleetwood in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy last Tuesday night gave some players a chance to begin the healing process, others like Josh Sheehan and Dion Charles have been able to find some closure on international duty with Wales and Northern Ireland, respectively.

But it will only be at the end of the week, when Evatt’s squad returns in full to begin preparing for Blackpool, and beyond that a Tuesday night trip to Cambridge United, that the manager will truly know whether the post-Stockport inquest has worked.

Hinting at a sincere debrief – both after the final whistle and in the days since – the Bolton boss has been pleased to see a certain degree of self-policing in the dressing room. And though he takes his responsibility to improve results and performances seriously, he believes his players should take the lead.

“I have said this to the players, so I am sure they won’t mind me sharing it with you,” he said. “But we had our own in-house discussions after the Stockport game and along with coaching this team it’s also my job to pass on some experience along the way.

“And the best teams I played with were the ones which held each other accountable, and I know it’s a societal thing, the world has changed and the way you listen to feedback and criticism is just down to how you interpret it yourself.

“The modern way is to think that every critique is personal and that everything is critique, but sometimes it can just be feedback. It is trying to help and giving the right information, and we have had to be on the right side of that as a team.

“The players asked for some time alone in the dressing room after the Stockport game so they could have these honest and transparent conversations, and we allowed them that.

“When I spoke to them after the game the things I’d said pretty much replicated what I’d also said out there in the media. That can stay-in house, but it was very honest.”

George Johnston spoke on behalf of the dressing room at Stockport, telling the Bolton public to “blame” the players – and not the manager or his coaching staff – for the result and performance.

The defender, who started the game as captain before Gethin Jones’s arrival midway through the second half, also acknowledged that some professional practices around the training ground could improve.

Evatt had also alluded to concerns about his players’ preparation for games in his post-match interviews with the local press. Speaking a few days later he expanded on the subject, insisting he was not looking to ‘pass the buck’ but rather to remind his players of their responsibilities away from his watch.

“We are not naïve, we know Stockport was not good enough, and that it needs to be a lot, lot better than that,” he said.

“Accountability is crucial. We need to demand the best from each other and it is my job as the manager and the staff’s job to push the players continually for the very best results.

“But there is also time when the manager and the staff are not present – be it personal time, time in the gym, whatever else, and at those moments it is down to the players to police themselves, and that is something that they all agree they need to improve.”

Evatt’s own standing also took a significant hit among the supporters, some of whom made their feelings clear after the final whistle and during spells of the second half.

If social media is to be used as an accurate barometer, then there are many who are still unhappy at the current state of play. And though Evatt also has his supporters on the terraces, he knows he may have to run the gauntlet a little while longer as he attempts to kickstart the promotion charge has targeted at the start of the season.

“We all have to be resilient,” he said. “I am a relatively young manager, but I have been through things like this, tough times like this. And there’s no destination you can try and reach which doesn’t have those bumps in the road.

“When you get them, you have to decide whether to turn back or to keep on walking. And for us it is just to keep walking forwards.”