Bolton Wanderers are back in action this weekend when they make the short journey to the Peninsula Stadium to take on Salford City.
The Trotters will take on the Ammies for a League Two clash between two of the pre-season favourites for the division's title.
Neither side are near the top of the league right now, but both still have promotion aspirations this season.
The Trotters came out on top when these sides met at the University of Bolton Stadium in November and Wanderers will be aiming to do the double.
Before the game, Bolton manager Ian Evatt spoke to the media at a pre-match press conference and here's some of the highlights of what he had to say.
How pleased are you with the four deadline day arrivals and how have they settled in?
“The most important thing for any transfer window is that you exit it stronger than when you started and I definitely feel like we’re in a much stronger and better place than we were before January.”
It’s increased competition for places and have you seen that in the training sessions? “
"Yeah just a bit. I’ve got a headache already for Saturday but it’s nice to have, I must say. It’s even difficult picking training groups at the minute and training sessions and there’s unhappy people that have been left out of the training group to train with the academy this morning, just because we’ve got that much quality in and that many good players.
"It’s challenging and it’s competitive but that’s how it should be at Bolton Wanderers. We want Bolton to have an elite group and a top group which it’s difficult to stay in, it’s difficult to get in the XI, it’s difficult to get in the 18, it’s difficult to be part of the squad, and you have to be constantly challenged.
"When we speak about recruitment, when you recruit players that shouldn’t be the end of the recruitment - it’s how you have to re-recruit them every day and educate them and make them understand what we want out of this football club and what we want out of them individually and collectively.
"That’s something that we’re looking at behind the scenes and getting that structure in place to make sure the players, whether you’re coming to Bolton Wanderers or you’re already part of the group, that they know what’s expected of them and there’s no excuses.”
Looking at the upcoming fixtures, the picture overall for Bolton and a lot of clubs will be a lot clearer by the end of February?
“I think so, but I’m incredibly excited because I think we’ve added real quality to the squad.
"We now have strength in depth, we have legitimate competition for places, so it enables me to play and rest and recover because more or less for every position, we really should have three players - a starter, a back-up and then a development player - and it’s looking more like we’re getting that at the moment so we’ve got a lot of games to go.
"It’s strange because we’re in February and normally in February you’ve broke the back of the season and you’re on the home straight, but this season we’ve still got almost half the games to play so there’s a long way to go.”
Injury news and are all four new signings eligible for Salford?
“They’re all eligible. They’re all fit and they’re all healthy. Shann Miller is also back fit. Antoni Sarcevic is missing with injury and Dennis (Politic) and Liam (Edwards) who are long term ones, everyone is fine. Covid testing was fine again this week so it’s all good.”
What’s your reflections on the transfer window and the late postponement against Mansfield?
“Overall positivity. Overall, happy with where we’re at and what we’ve done. Obviously Tuesday was exceptionally frustrating for me, probably more for the players because they had to travel but I live 20 minutes away so it wasn’t so bad.
"But it’s just the manner of it really after last week which was frustrating, but it is what it is. Funnily enough I voiced my concerns, it’s just funny with people’s mentality and mindsets because I was frustrated that we as a club have spent money on travel costs and accommodation for two weeks on the trot that we’ve lost and not got back, and the answer was ‘well you shouldn’t be concerned about the money you’ve lost at hotels when you’ve spent that much money in the transfer window’.
"I had to make them aware that obviously the salary cap is the salary cap and we are still massively underneath that.
"That’s people’s opinion on Bolton Wanderers and that’s what we deal with everywhere we go, that’s a frustration of mine.”
There’s going to be five weeks of Saturday-Tuesday matches - could that give greater scope to players on the periphery?
“I think we’ve now got legitimate competition for places and players are going to have to come in and out because the intensity that I want us to play at takes a lot of physical work.
"It’s tough and demanding and you can’t be fresh and play to that level Saturday-Tuesday for five weeks on the trot, it’s impossible, so we’ll have to utilise the squad but the positive thing is now that we’ve got a squad that is more than capable of producing the goods if we make changes to bring in.”
You’re going to get through quite a raft of fixtures over the next few weeks and there’s the chance to develop some momentum?
“I think so. I think as we saw in November, when you get in a good run of form you can pick up points and pick up places in this league table really quickly and it’s still ever so condensed.
"I think we’re still only nine points off the play-offs and we’ve been on an awful run prior to Saturday, so I think if we can put it all together and put it all together quickly then there’s no reason why we still can’t be in the promotion hunt.
"I believe that we can and certainly it’s important the players do as well, but first and foremost we have to take care of the next game and we’ve got a really difficult game on Saturday against Salford.”
Salford have had more time under Richie Wellens now, how tough do you anticipate it being?
“Really tough. I think it’s going to be a really challenging game, they’ve got a wealth and a raft of good talented players and we don’t really know what individuals are going to play or what formations they’;re going to play because they’ve been adaptable and they’ve changed a lot.
"I think Richie is still finding his way with them and they’re finding out about each other, but whoever plays, I know Richie well, I played against him many times.
"We did our coaching badges together, I know him as a person, as a player and now as a coach and manager and they’ll be highly motivated to beat us, they’ll want to put it right for the game that was here and they still have ambition of being promoted themselves so it’s going to be a really tough game but one we’re looking forward to.
"I think this week, the players that were brought in has lifted the players again after a fantastic result and performance on Saturday, so hopefully we can go there and so what we’re about, show what we can do and get a positive result.”
