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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
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John McDougall

Bolton Wanderers boss Ian Evatt on Shrewsbury Town win, Dion Charles and Kyle Dempsey latest

Bolton Wanderers made it two wins on the bounce in League One with a huge late victory on the road over Shrewsbury Town.

Wanderers followed up the victory over Ispwich Town last weekend with a 1-0 victory at Montgomery Waters Meadow.

And Dion Charles struck late on as full-time approached with a tremendous strike from just outside the box with a goal good enough to win any match.

READ MORE: Bolton Wanderers player ratings vs Shrewsbury Town - Charles magical, Afolayan impact and defence solid

The win lifted Bolton up to 15th in the table with another clean sheet.

After the game, Wanderers boss Ian Evatt spoke to the press and here's his immediate reaction to the big win, including the latest on transfer interest in Gillingham captain Kyle Dempsey.

It was some goal, wasn’t it?

“Yeah I’m delighted for him. Obviously it’s well documented now that when he first signed, he’s suffered a little bit.

“I’m delighted for him to get that goal and be off the mark. There’s nothing better than scoring a late winner in front of what was a magnificent crowd today.”

You worked hard for it and had to soak up pressure at times?

“That’s what you have to do away from home. These were five or six unbeaten, this is always a tough place to come and you have to dig in, you have to defend your box well and you have to hurt them when you get the opportunities.

"We’re still building our confidence levels again, the change of shape has given us a bit more connection in terms of the way we defend, we’ve got extra bodies around the pitch where we need them, especially in the box.

“On the ball, we will improve, we’ll be better as results come and confidence comes and work on the training ground. But first and foremost now you have to be hard to beat and you have to show effort and endeavour and commitment and today we did that in abundance.”

Would you be expecting to make further progress in terms of Dempsey, do you know anything further?

“We obviously want the player and we’ve made an offer. We’re still waiting to hear back on Gillingham and we’ll pursue it as best we can, within reason, but he’s obviously a player that we want and like and we feel light in that midfield area, so we’ll continue with that and see how we get on.”

You all of sudden seem to have the options you didn’t appear to have a month ago?

“I’m not saying I’m a prophet but I did say in October we were going to go through a really turbulent time and we were going to suffer and struggle and it was going to be hard and that’s exactly how it was.

“We have suffered but with the backing of the board and the support we’ve had around, we’ve managed to rebuild the squad and all of a sudden it looks pretty strong again.

“I’m not going to rest on my laurels. We’ve got a lot of hard work to do and to go and we need to keep them all in one piece, which would be nice.

"But other than that, once you get your Kachungas back in this and Isgrove and Josh Sheehan and we add another midfield player, all of a sudden that squad is going to look pretty good and that’s what we’ve wanted to do.”

Has that restored the confidence factor?

“That’s still coming. For now, the most important thing in the last couple of games was hard work, endeavour, commitment and being hard to beat and we’ve been that. Too many times this season we’ve created our own demise really.

"We’ve given away stupid goals, sloppy goals through individual errors. We’ve just needed to cut those out and defend for our lives and we’ve done that today.”

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