Bolton Wanderers: Defeat works Ian Evatt into difficult supporter position – View | OneFootball

There is a concern that Ian Evatt has reached his coaching ceiling with Bolton Wanderers supporters' patience very thin after the end to last season.

Bolton Wanderers suffered a 2-0 defeat at home to Exeter City last weekend, and it must now be said that it feels as though the general tide of supporter feeling has turned against Trotters boss Ian Evatt.

The unexpected defeat means they have begun the 2024/25 League One season with just one victory in their opening four matches, which leaves them languishing in the bottom-half of the table, when they were once again expected to challenge for automatic promotion.

It is still very early days, but it leads on from a collapse in the second-half of last season when they missed out on the top two spots on the final day of the campaign, before then being comfortably beaten by Oxford United 2-0 at Wembley in the League One play-off final.

Evatt has suggested he wanted to make tactical tweaks, and he has done so, but the word tweak is doing a lot of heavy lifting because to the naked eye, it would suggest nothing has changed.

Bolton head into a hectic month of football, and it would be extremely surprising to see Evatt depart at any stage this season, not least within the next few weeks, but there is immense pressure on the ex-Barrow boss.

Ian Evatt showing tactical limitations in early stages of 2024-25 season

In the opening three League One games of this season, Evatt decided to try and play what was either a 3-4-2-1 or a 3-4-3, with two ‘number tens’ in behind striker Dion Charles.

However, just three games later, Evatt reverted back to what was essentially a 3-5-2, with Kyle Dempsey playing in a slightly more advanced midfield role alongside Josh Sheehan and George Thomason and in behind a front two of the aforementioned Charles, as well as John McAtee.

The lack of patience Evatt had for his new system that he deployed for the entirety of pre-season left many irritated – especially given the fact it resorted to a more conservative and defensive approach at home to a team in Exeter City that Wanderers defeated by seven goals to nil in the same fixture last season.

The concern would be that this is no longer a stubbornness to be proven right - even though Evatt has come out and suggested it wasn’t actually a bad performance due to the stats and the amount of shots Wanderers had.

It was undoubtedly a poor, tired, stale performance that Bolton fans have watched throughout this calendar year and that, prior to a 3-2 defeat of Barrow in the EFL Trophy earlier this week, had produced just 13 victories in 35 matches across all competitions since beating Burton Albion 1-0 on New Year’s Day.

Rather than it be stubbornness, some feel that Evatt’s ceiling has been reached at League One level, and the formulaic, specific and precise patterns of play may perhaps work at a higher level with a better calibre of player.

But it has been so long of the ‘same old’ that doubts about whether Evatt, who was adamant he would be a Premier League manager within five years just three years ago, has what it tactically takes to continue being one of the bright young managers in the EFL.

The ability to adapt and be flexible or recognise issues and solve problems is a fundamental of any good coach, no matter if they are a pragmatist or an ideologue, but that appears to not be something Evatt is capable of, and Wanderers have underperformed for a sustained enough period of time to make that be a fair suggestion.

Bolton Wanderers’ mitigating factors

Evatt has discussed the fact that the amount of injuries Bolton had throughout the summer pre-season was an issue in terms of giving the players information about the tactical tweaks, so it would therefore make sense that a lot of what fans are saying is what failed Bolton in the second half of last season.

There is also an argument that those injury issues, especially to Klaidi Lolos and Carlos Mendes Gomes, means that Bolton simply don’t currently have the personnel available to shift to three attackers in the frontline.

However, whilst those would be mitigating factors for the early regression, they are also issues that the club have brought upon themselves, with the sale of Jack Iredale to Hibernian right before the transfer window closed meaning they no longer have the ability to switch to a back four without playing somebody out of position.

The lack of numbers in attack would also be a concern. Evatt said he wanted to recruit specifically for his tactical tweaks so more attacking players would make sense, and the arrivals of McAtee, Scott Arfield and Lolos fit that suggestion.

However, in basic numbers, Bolton played with two attackers last season and had Charles, Victor Adeboyejo, Aaron Collins, Mendes Gomes, Dan Nlundulu, Cameron Jerome and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson to select from – a total of seven options for two positions.

This season, Wanderers look like they want to play with three attackers and, if fully fit and available, have Charles, Adeboyejo, Collins, Mendes Gomes, McAtee, Lolos and Arfield as natural options for those roles - a total of seven options for three positions.

Misjudged recruitment, injury issues that have plagued Bolton throughout Evatt’s time in charge, and a reluctance or inability to tactically, despite his own apparent desire, leaves Evatt in a precarious situation with Bolton fans.

The Trotters return from the September international break to welcome Huddersfield Town to the Toughsheet Community Stadium and, with patience already thin or, in a lot of cases, gone, there is already a lot of pressure on that match in regards to Evatt's job - he may have credit in the bank with Sharon Brittan, but volatility from the terraces could soon change that.