Bolton Wanderers begin the new League One season this weekend on the road against Ipswich Town.
Wanderers travel to take on the Tractor Boys this Saturday at Portman Road. They will be seeking to begin the 2022/23 campaign in positive fashion after a top 10 finish last season.
The Whites will be aiming to repeat the double their achieved over the Suffolk side last season. A 5-2 victory at Portman Road was followed up with a 2-0 success at the University of Bolton Stadium.
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Ahead of the new campaign, Wanderers boss Ian Evatt has held his first pre-match press conference prior to the League One curtain raiser. Here's some of the highlights he told broadcasters in the live section of speaking to the media.
On the new season...
“It comes around fast, doesn't it. We’re looking forward to it and we’re excited. A long season but one we’re really looking forward to.”
Where are you in terms of availability?
“Everybody is available really apart from Josh and Lloyd and they’re at very late stages of recovery and rehab now. They’ll be both playing in a B team game I would think within the next couple of weeks and then they will be fully back available. Everyone else is available for selection, apart from Eoin Toal as well.
“He’s still probably a few days from being able to join back in with the group, but everybody else is fit and available to go.”
Does that mean you’re going to have a headache with team selection?
“Yeah absolutely. Since I’ve been a manager and it’s my fifth season now, it’s been the hardest team to pick. Not just that, it’s going to be a really tough 18 to pick because it’s going to be a really tough 18 to pick because there’s going to be a very good senior player left off the bench and it won’t be for the reasons that we don’t think they’re important or we don’t think they’re good enough to make a difference. It’ll literally be the balance of the bench and how that needs to look.
“Other than that, there’s going to be some seriously disappointed lads on Saturday, but as I’ve said to them all, it’s hopefully a 50 plus game season and everyone’s going to have to play a part.”
How much are you looking forward to this campaign with the added expectation of what has happened previously?
“I’m really looking forward to it, I must say. People are saying this is pressure, but I don’t think it is. I think we’ve earnt the right to have this pressure, having this pressure and expectancy means I’ve done a pretty good job so hopefully that continues and the players are well prepared.
“I think we’ve all improved, myself included, in my time here and hopefully we can go ahead and show that this season.”
How important is it for you to improve on the previous couple of seasons and the start to the campaign?
“The last start wasn’t that bad last season, I think it was a pretty decent start. It was the October to January period that was the difficult bit, but I think we’re much more prepared for scenarios like that now.
“We’ve got a really strong squad, a really good group of players that hopefully we can keep them all in one piece and I can have selection headaches for the majority of the season because if I have then it means the team are functioning really well and they’re in one piece.”
How was your summer?
“It’s been very busy to be honest, very little time off, but I enjoy my job, I enjoy trying to get this club improving and moving in the right direction and I think we’ve managed to do that this summer.”
How close do you feel the conversations are going to be between your team and the staff at the B team just to make sure that their players are going to be 100 per cent ready for whatever first team football has to throw at them?
“We have to be really careful with the narrative we use towards the B team at the moment. I think this is a group of young players that have been thrown together from up and down the country, have been thrusted into completely new environments, some of them have moved away from home for the very first time. A completely new staff, a completely new group of players and we have to give them time.
“For me it’s not about results right now, it’s about the introduction to the football club, the environment, the culture, learning about our philosophy and identity and then engraining that into them. I must say that they’ve settled really well.
“Obviously the results haven’t been what everybody wants or expects, but it’s not about that now, they need some time. They all need time, it’s a completely new group and we’ve seen that ourselves when I first took over here, we had a completely new squad of players and for the first half of the season, we couldn’t get results and that changed in the January, so we just need to cut them a bit of slack and give them time to develop and improve.
“They’re young men, they’re all going to be good players in their own right. They’re not all going to make it, there’s no doubt about that and the stats say that, but if we can get two or three through the production line and into the first team then we’ve done a good job.”
Do you feel as though you are happy with pre-season and how they followed on from the end of last term?
“I think we’ve improved again. I think every game in pre-season has been a positive, and that includes the Carlisle one which was a disappointing performance but it was a positive in terms of we learnt a lot from that game and probably learnt the most from that game in terms of what’s expected and what’s not, what’s acceptable and what’s not.
“We’ve responded really well with a good performance against Huddersfield, having watched that game back I thought we were excellent, especially in the second half and if we can replicate that kind of performance throughout the season, we’re going to have a good season but this league in my opinion has become tougher.
“It’s become tougher because I think the quality and the spending of the opposition has improved but also our expectancy has gone up as well and we’re expected to achieve more this season, so it’s going to be a tough one but one we’re looking forward to and embracing.”
How do you temper expectations now they have been heightened?
“You can’t. We’ve earnt the right for those expectations because we’ve fundamentally performed well for two seasons, we’ve had a promotion and a good campaign last season.
“We’re Bolton Wanderers in League One, we’re expected to do well, it’s as simple as that, but you haven’t got a given right to do it just because of the size of the club or the history or with regards to others, just because they’ve spent the most money does not mean they’re going to get promoted either.
“You have to go out there and earn it and we’re going to have to go out there and make sure that we earn it this season. We know we need to improve, we know where we need to improve and hopefully we can do that.”
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