Ian Evatt believes Bolton Wanderers are now starting to look like one of his teams and that the January signings are helping make that a reality.
Wanderers were busy in the most recent transfer window, signing no fewer than eight players.
The likes of Kieran Lee, MJ Williams, Declan John, Oladalpo Afolayan and Marcus Maddison have gone on to establish themselves as regular starters for the Trotters.
Their contributions allied to those of existing squad members has helped ensure Wanderers have climbed up the League Two table on the back of a six match unbeaten run.
It has included winning their last four games on the bounce, which has taken them within two points of the play-offs heading into this weekend's game against Barrow.
The most recent of these victories was on Tuesday evening with a 2-0 win over Scunthorpe United at the University of Bolton Stadium.
And Evatt believes the first half in particular against the Iron resembled one of his teams in terms of playing style.
He said: “We still have the same principles and philosophy but we haven’t had the tools until now to be able to put the plan into action so far.
“Tuesday, especially first half, it looked like an Ian Evatt team. That is everything we worked on, everything we looked to do. I was really pleased with it.
“We have got better players in the building now that are able to do what we’re asking them to do.
“We haven’t cracked it. We’re only just starting to layer in finer detail of passing patterns, movement, rotation, which has been hard because there hasn’t been a lot of time on the training pitch but also the quality and the standard of player – especially early on – couldn’t really do what we were trying to do."
Evatt was previously boss at tomorrow's opponents Barrow, where it took him a couple of seasons to win promotion to the EFL with.
The Bolton boss pointed to a resemblance with how his two seasons with the Bluebirds began and how they developed.
And he believes there is more to come from this current Wanderers side in the final 16 games of the League Two season.
He said: “It is difficult for managers to walk in and immediately implement a style overnight. It has to be with hard work on the training pitch.
“If you look at my results at Barrow, both seasons were awful starts, but we grew as the season went on. It is a similar pattern for it.
“We will be stronger for all this next year because we will know which players are fit for purpose and which are not, those we can replace with better and those we can’t. Also we have some foundations laid on the training pitch about the style we want.
“Right at this moment it’s about this group saying: ‘We have 16 games left, how far can we go?’
“This team is nowhere near where I think it can get to. We’re having good results but there is more to come and that is exciting for everyone."
