Ian Evatt felt Burton Albion were 'there for the taking' and Bolton Wanderers 'beat themselves' in the League One clash as the Whites boss believes a goal earlier in the contest could have changed the course of the game.
Bolton's seven game unbeaten run came to an end with a 3-1 loss at the Pirelli Stadium last night.
The Brewers went ahead thanks to Joe Powell's close range finish after eight minutes and things got worse shortly when John Brayford headed past James Trafford.
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Wanderers then went three down on 18 minutes when Brayford headed home his second of the game as Bolton conceded three goals from set pieces.
Bolton improved a bit after the break and reduced the deficit late on when Dion Charles came off the bench to grab one back before full-time, but Wanderers ultimately tasted defeat at the Pirelli Stadium.
Wanderers had a great chance in the first half involving Jon Dadi Bodvarsson and Amadou Bakayoko, which was ultimately not taken.
And Evatt felt that things could have been a different story had that chance or others gone in.
He said: “I felt like if we got one we could have created more and Baka and Jon had that great chance and Sads (Kieran Sadlier) had the free kick.
"It just wasn’t our night tonight for whatever reason. I don’t feel like they’ve beaten us, I think we’ve beaten ourselves by not doing our jobs properly from set plays.
"I think if we’d have scored earlier we could have built some momentum. I do feel they were there for the taking. I think you could see that.
"I think there was only one team trying to do the right things but when you come up against that many set plays and they’re good at it and long throws are coming in from all over the place, it’s challenging to deal with and we didn’t deal with it well enough in the first half.
“Jon’s going to improve. We had to go back to front a little bit quicker tonight because of the pitch and we picked our two big strikers and our biggest team to deal with their threats and also to be able to cope with our longer play and longer passing. We just didn’t win enough first contacts first half anywhere on the pitch really.”
Evatt named the performances of January signings Kieran Sadlier and Kyle Dempsey as among the few positives from the encounter at the Pirelli Stadium.
And the Bolton boss feels his side must react to the loss when they take on AFC Wimbledon this Saturday at home.
He said: “I thought Sads did well. I thought Kyle Dempsey was excellent, I thought he did really well in midfield in difficult conditions. Other than that there’s not loads of positives to take out of it. We just have to go again on Saturday.
“We knew we were going to lose a game. Obviously we’re disappointed with the manner of it but it’s how we react now and we must make sure we are ready to go on Saturday.”
