IAN Evatt says his decision to back Victor Adeboyejo in the second half against Mansfield Town on Tuesday night could do wonders for the striker’s confidence.

Bolton’s number nine recovered from missing a gilt-edged opportunity just after half time to grab his fourth goal of the campaign, putting his side ahead with 10 minutes to go.

Fans had voiced their displeasure – both at the time of the missed chance and when Evatt opted to substitute Aaron Collins for Dion Charles a few moments later.

Adeboyejo's celebration after scoring involved him putting one finger to his lips and another in his ear - seemingly a response to the earlier reaction.

After the plan worked out for all involved, Evatt hopes the former Burton Albion front man's goal can lead to more.

“I am delighted for Victor because everyone heard the reaction when he missed that chance, which isn’t going to help his confidence,” the manager said.

“So sometimes he needs the confidence of his manager to say ‘I believe in you, I’ll stick with you, go and get me the winning goal.’ Obviously, we added the third but I a m delighted he got the second.

“I thought his general play was pretty good, his hold up play was pretty good. They are such a physical team and they leave you one-v-one, you need someone who is a focal point to play up to and Victor is our most physical focal point.

“It would have been easy to leave Aaron on, but I don’t think it was his best night, and I am not saying anything I wouldn’t say to him. We needed Victor to be that focal point to play into and have runners off him, and I thought he played well.

“Obviously he is disappointed to miss a chance, he doesn’t mean it, but football is a confidence game and it would have done him the world of good to get that one in the end.”

Wanderers have failed to score a first-half goal in eight of their nine home league games so far this season, the only exception being the four they rattled past Reading in September.

Once again, their salvation was found in the second half, but Evatt said he did not have to give any huge half-time speeches to get the reaction he wanted.

“It was more about the frustration of how difficult we had made it for ourselves,” he said. “We hadn’t got the early goal we’d perhaps deserved with the chances we created and then conceding such a poor goal again gives us such a mountain to climb.

“On the back of that, we are under pressure. The fans want wins, we have to come up with those wins.

“But the way they responded second half, this group has always responded, found a way when fingers and pointed at us and did it again second half.”

Evatt experimented with inverted wing-backs against Mansfield, with Josh Dacres-Cogley and Szabolcs Schön starting on the opposite side to normal, with Jordi Osei-Tutu and Randell Williams introduced later on.

He hopes to do some fine-tuning to his tactics in the weeks to come but believes there was enough evidence to warrant trying it again.

“We feel we have got some flexibility in the wing-backs we have recruited and they are capable of playing either side of the pitch,” he said.

“There were some tweaks this week, firstly for the opposition, but secondly to give us another string to our bow. I thought we saw glimpses of it but the more we work on it, the more it will improve.”