Ian Evatt told Dapo Afolayan he would score the winner just moments before the forward's goal secured three points for Bolton Wanderers on the road against Fleetwood Town.
The Whites came from 1-0 down on the road against the Cod Army. Carlos Mendes Gomes had given the hosts the lead in the first half of the clash.
But Wanderers were the dominant side in the encounter at Highbury Stadium and got back on level terms thanks to Conor Bradley's equaliser. The Whites took a deserved three points when Afolayan struck deep in injury time to claim a 2-1 win.
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It was one-way traffic for large parts of the encounter and eventually, Bolton's pressure told as they scored two late goals, with the performance against a side who are hard to beat making Evatt very proud. And he revealed the way the game was going, he told Afolayan he would score the winner moments before he did just that.
Evatt said:“We just needed one to go in, didn’t we, and then you could see the confidence come and Dapo will tell you, I literally said a couple of minutes before that he would score the winner.
“It just felt that was that a big chance was going to fall to him, that we were going to get another big chance and it was a lovely bit of magic from Josh Sheehan in the box and a very good finish.
“I’ve got an immense belief in my team and my players. I see what they do day to day. We spoke about the data and the statistics in the week and a lot of things that we’re doing is absolutely right.
“I could sense the way that they were performing today was exactly what I asked for. Sometimes you get what you deserve, sometimes you don’t, but I was really calm. I’m getting older now and I need to calm down but today, I just had a huge amount of belief with the players.
“I don’t think we were erratic with our decision making, I think we didn’t shoot on site, we still probed and picked the right passes at the right times. We put some good balls into the box, sometimes we were in the right positions and sometimes not.
“That is development and work on the training ground and we’ll keep working really hard to improve that, but to come away from home against a team that’s really challenging and difficult to beat in a really difficult stadium which we felt last season, to dominate the game like we did and play like we did today has made me immensely proud.”
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