Bolton boss Ian Evatt believes the best managers in the game are all in the Premier League and he is learning from them by taking aspects of their coaching and putting them into practice at Wanderers.
Evatt feels Tottenham Hotspur's Jose Mourinho, Manchester City's Pep Guardiola, Liverpool's Jurgen Klopp and Leeds United's Marcelo Bielsa are the among those who are at the top of the management tree.
Under Evatt, Wanderers have implemented Bielsa's infamous 'murderball' training drill as part of their pre-match preparations.
And the Bolton boss believes how Wanderers train and the intensity of which they do so can help them replicate what he wants to see from the Trotters on matchday.
He said: "You have to as a young coach and manager learn from the best.
"In my opinion they are Guardiola, Mourinho, Klopp, Bielsa - top, top managers, and if you can take a bit from them and implement it yourself in your own way, then it can only be good for you.
"You have to keep adapting and learning and progressing with football, because it changes quickly.
"Yes, it is hard work and the players will tell you that on the training pitch.
"How you practice defines who you are and if we practice the way we play, all of a sudden it becomes more natural and easy to do on a matchday and that’s what we’re trying to implement here."
Evatt is implementing a new playing style at Bolton focused on possession and a slick passing philosophy.
Initially, results did not materialise in the early stage of the season but have begun to come from October onwards, with Bolton having lost just twice in League Two in their last 10 games.
They are currently three games unbeaten in the league and have won their last two matches in the division.
And Evatt pointed to the slow starts experiencing by the Premier League quartet when they have started at new clubs and that success did not come instantly for them.
But he believes after having a fully fit squad and with the increased time the squad spends together training, Wanderers are starting to see the benefits.
He said: “If you look at all of the top managers - Mourinho, Pep, Klopp, Bielsa - they didn’t win anything immediately, they didn’t win anything in their first season. It does take time.
“We’re only five months in to a whole new process, a whole new way of playing with a whole new squad, it’s just repetitive messaging and keep practicing and increasing and demanding standards in training, and having players fit enough and available and we haven’t had all those things all at once.
“We’ve now got them and we’re starting to see the benefit of that."
Wanderers picked up their first win of the season against Harrogate Town at the start of October.
And Evatt admits he was 'always determined' to stick with his style of play and not deviate from it too much for the sake of claiming three points.
“I made a pact with myself when I first became a manager that if we’re going to do things we’re going to do things the way I want to do it. I have a firm belief in my philosophy, it works, and it’s just about improving that and being better at it," he said.
“Yes, sometimes the expectation and the outside noise can alter your philosophy and how you act and perform professionally.
"However, I think what we’ve done is we’ve tried to keep ourselves calm in the eye of the storm.
"There’s been a storm all around us but in that eye of the storm we’ve been nice and calm, showing belief, showing confidence and repetitive messaging, and all of a sudden now the players are starting to grab a hold of what we want from them."
