Ian Evatt has revealed that Conor Bradley was rested for Bolton Wanderers' trip to Cheltenham Town on Tuesday night, alleviating fears that the right wing-back is injured.
Bolton's four-match winning streak screeched to a halt in Gloucestershire as they struggled against the relentless press of the hosts and slipped to a late but deserved 1-0 defeat. Ryan Broom swept home the winner in the 87th minute after Kieran Sadlier had been disposed to spark the attack.
Sadlier had replaced Will Aimson on the hour-mark, with the centre-back coming in for Bradley which saw Gethin Jones pushed forward to the flank. It was a decision that backfired on Evatt as Bolton were lacking the pace and incisiveness that the Liverpool loanee provides down the right.
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The good news at least is that Bradley is not injured as Evatt made the tactical decision to leave the 19-year-old at home for the match in the hope that the rest will keep him fit and fresh for the rest of the period before the World Cup. However, the Bolton boss admits his side did miss him.
"We have to remember this is his first loan and he has put so much into that first loan," he said after the match. "He's had no breaks, no days, been away and played both international games and has been ill in that time as well and still played internationally. We can’t keep going to the well, taking the risk and risk losing him long term so we decided tonight was the night, with the type of game it was going to be, to give him a rest.
“Obviously long term we hope to see the benefits of that but tonight we definitely missed him. We know Cheltenham, we knew there would be lots of long throws, we knew what the game was going to be like. We picked players that we hoped could physically cope with that.
“Conor utilises space really well but we knew there would be limited space out there. That’s why we took the decision to give him a rest. We miss him but long term it is important we keep him healthy because he is an important player for us.”
