Bolton Wanderers return to action tomorrow evening hoping to return to winning ways against struggling Doncaster Rovers.
Wanderers are seeking back to back home wins in League One when they take on the Yorkshire side at the University of Bolton Stadium.
Bolton are 13th in League One after the weekend's action and take on a Doncaster side sitting 23rd in the table and four points from safety in the third tier of English football.
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Wanderers will be hoping to get Saturday's narrow loss on the road to Wycombe out of their systems and build upon the three points they picked up the last time they were at the UniBol in the form of the 2-0 win over Crewe Alexandra.
Ahead of taking on Donny, Wanderers boss Ian Evatt spoke to the press and here's every word of what he had to say to broadcasters ahead of tomorrow evening's encounter.
What’s the roll call?
“It’s gone from bad to worse. MJ dislocated his shoulder, he’s in to see a consultant this week. We’ll then have a realistic time frame whether he needs immediate surgery or we may be able to get away with it until the summer, but even still, it’s going to take some weeks to rebuild some strength in the shoulder to prevent it from coming out again. He’s out for the foreseeable.
“Alex Baptiste also has a medial ligament injury from Saturday. He looks like he’ll be missing, it’s not good.”
With two home games to come, you’ve talked about the challenges. In many ways is this the biggest challenge you face with the squad being reduced?
“In my entire career, let alone management career but professional football career, I’ve never known a period where so many senior players can be missing at once and we’re not talking about squad players here.
“We’re talking about our first XI and it’s been absolutely decimated, but there’s nothing we can do about it unfortunately.
“We’ve got to crack on and that’s what I was saying on Saturday after the game about a bit of a siege mentality and us against the world kind of thing and have the fans on board with that and back the players because we can’t do anything about it until January, so for now, we’ve got to do the best we can to find a way of getting results.”
Do you feel as though it’s a question of getting through what is going to be a difficult period injury-wise? Have you got enough bodies?
“Not if they keep going down. I think we’re down to 14 senior players now. It’s really tough but we’ve got a group that are willing to fight and scrap and we have to find a way of getting results.
"It’s difficult, it’s tough, it’s challenging, but we have a strong mindset and we’re fighters and we’ll come out swinging.”
Does that accelerate the search in January or alter any plans that you may have had in place when the window opens?
“We failed on one or two targets on deadline day, not because of us or the players we were trying to sign. It was more the parent clubs and those we were going to take to January and try and get them done again, but obviously the situation has drastically changed.
“We are woefully short of bodies and a lot of it is down to injuries and these aren’t muscle injuries where you could adapt the training or it’s something to do with the training or workload.
"These are contact injuries that the majority have happened in a game with physical contact that can’t be avoided so I’ve not known a run like it, but we’ve been through really tough times before. We can’t feel too sorry for ourselves.
"We’re still midtable in League One. This time last year, it was a lot, lot worse than this, so for now it’s about us getting on with it, keeping our heads down, keep fighting and finding a way to get results.”
Six Premier League managers have fallen by the wayside, one just down the road from here. Things don’t surprise in football, but we’re a third of the way through November…
“It’s an awful part of the game. It’s sad. Managers need time and they need, when things are tough, some support sometimes and unless things have become untenable and it’s quite obvious that the players don’t care for the manager anymore and they’re not trying.
"For me, they have to be given more time and especially when you’re giving managers and recruiting to a manager’s philosophy or style and you’re giving managers money to spend or sign players, it’s not good if you’ve done that, backed him and then midway through a season before another window, you sack him because a new manager is just stuck with the old manager’s players anyway and they’re recruited to a different philosophy to what a new manager might have. It just doesn’t make sense but it’s football and I guess that’s the nature of the beast.”
It was a strong message after the Wycombe match calling on everyone to offer full support and an important sense of perspective is needed compared to little over a year ago?
“Yes. But we also understand football is an emotional game and people will have opinions. They want immediate success and we all do, but we also have to be realistic sometimes and we’re in the middle of a pretty hefty storm, especially injury wise, so for now the group that we’ve got fit and available need all of the support we can get because we’re going to need them to find a way to get results until we can do something about it.
"At the moment, we can’t do anything about it.”
It’s not helped by MJ Williams being out for the foreseeable future and for a little while at least, no Alex Baptiste?
“Obviously that doesn’t help and I thought Baps was great at right-back on Saturday. I thought as a performance it was a very good one from the team. MJ’s obviously a key point and pivotal to everything we do, so he’s going to be a huge miss.
"But we have to find a way and adapt and overcome and do the best we can. We’ve still got 14 fit players and those 14 are going to have to roll up their sleeves, get their heads down and try their damndest to be the best they can be and they need everybody’s support to do that. It’s going to be physical.
"It’s going to be tough. We’ve got lots of games coming up and we’ve got what we’ve got. The training schedule is going to have to change to keep people in one piece, but we need them. And we need the fans to really help us.”
You’ve got Mitchell Henry and Arran Pettifer who have been on the bench for the last couple of games. For the youth players, despite the circumstances, how much confidence do they have that they might have a chance to show what they can offer to the first team?
“They may well be given a chance. Are they ready to play in our first team at the moment? The answer is no, but we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do and they’ve been performing the best in the youth team so obviously they’re the next in line.
“The gap between the youth team and our first team has probably increased in recent times. That’s down to the fact that we haven’t got a 23s anymore and it’s asking a lot to go straight from under 18s football into a first team environment.
"There is a big age gap there and a big physical difference, so these players take time and need time to develop, but unfortunately at the minute, we’ve got no choice but to get them involved and they will be needed at some stage.”
A good example from that and being away from first team football is George Thomason and it’s incredible to think a little over a year ago he was on loan at Bamber Bridge - he’s a shining light of what can happen if you put the hard work in?
“George is a slightly different example to Arran and Mitchell because he’s a little bit older and had more men’s football. But George is first and foremost a wonderful young man, very humble, very down to earth, speaks very well and that’s credit to his family and to his parents.
“He’s developed so much and he’s become for such a young man, a leader and a sensible head in the group. Football’s a funny game sometimes and earlier on in the season, after the second half of the season and him doing so well, he had to be patient and bide his time when we had a fully fit midfield unit.
"But now he’s going to be given an opportunity and a run of games and that’s great for George. It’s what he wants and it’s what he deserves and hopefully he’ll show everyone what he can do.”
Doncaster, like Crewe, are in the bottom four right now and they may feel what exactly have we got to lose - how are you hoping to counteract that?
“We need to counteract it by being us and doing what we do well. If we play to the levels we got to on Saturday that should be good enough and it will be good enough.
"It should have been good enough on Saturday and we’ve been speaking this morning about the one per cents in football. We switched off from a throw in, we didn’t get back in position quickly enough and yes, it was a cross and a very good header, but it was an avoidable goal.
"It’s them fine moments and margins that we need to be better on, but in general we played very well and should have scored goals.
"We didn’t in the final third and that’s something that we need to look at and improve on, but the performance, regardless of injuries and regardless of how depleted we are, was excellent.
"Wycombe were a team in the Championship last year. They’re in the top three of this division, very hard team to play against and I thought we more than matched them, so if we get to those levels again, that should be good enough.”
