THE uneasy ceasefire called for the international break will come to an end on Saturday lunchtime, but which Bolton Wanderers will run into battle against Blackpool?
Many fans have done all they can to forget the details of a painful and heavy defeat at Stockport, a game which finished with angry scenes in the away end and manager Ian Evatt very much in the crosshairs. Forgiveness? Well, that is another matter entirely.
Even though Evatt and several of his players went through the motions against Fleetwood in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy last Tuesday, they return to League One action this weekend with more at stake than mere points.
For Bolton’s embattled boss, the chance to take a small step towards redemption, if only in the eyes of those who remain undecided.
It feels like a long time since Evatt led his players around the pitch to thank the fans after Klaidi Lolos’s late winner against Peterborough United. Indeed, he has gained a year, but his 43rd birthday went without any official message of congratulation from the club, a sad reflection of the response they anticipated on social media.
Instead, photos were posted of Evatt and other staff shovelling snow from the first team training pitches at Lostock, knowing it might not be long before the next flurry. And in that sense, the pictures may have been more symbolic than anyone realised.
It won’t have escaped the manager’s attention that his critics, once a vocal minority, have increased in number and volume over the last few months. After quelling the worst of the dissention with a very decent run of results, post-Huddersfield, in late September and October, he finds himself back at the beginning again, shovel in hand, snow falling all around. Whether he ever manages to clear the pitch completely, only time will tell.
Evatt insists he has the full backing of his players, who stated en-masse that they should take the blame for the Stockport defeat. To some, their apologies were passed off as lip service, but the admission could also be interpreted as the first time any of the squad have realised just how much pressure was being put on the man who brought them to the club.
Though it was Keith Hill who brought the midfielder to Bolton, Evatt has gradually built him up to become a bedrock of the team, not to mention his captain. Gethin Jones, who had not kicked a ball because of a knee injury before he was chucked on in the second half at Stockport, is another trusted lieutenant whose return could ultimately prove decisive.
After dabbling with a change of direction in the summer and trying to prove his team had evolved from the one which vanished in the play-off final, Evatt has since pulled a hard hand-break turn and is now leaning into the personnel and philosophies which secured top six finishes in the last two seasons. Familiarity may be of some comfort in what has been a frighteningly inconsistent season to this point.
Wanderers’ record in televised games has been solid since Evatt came to the club, stretching back to a pivotal November night at home to Salford City when the decision to bring Matt Gilks out of semi-retirement and to drop loan keeper Billy Crellin might well have saved his job.
That 2-0 win paved the way for major changes behind the scenes and a surge of form in the second half of the season which eventually led to promotion from League Two.
Back in the pandemic days there were no frustrated voices around the stadium providing instant and emotional judgement. But the next 90 minutes, to be played against a Lancashire rival and a club Evatt holds close to his own heart, will be a very different matter.
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