Ian Evatt has wished his players who are heading out for international duty all the best and hope all return in good health for Bolton Wanderers' huge game in their run of 'cup finals' when they take on Wigan Athletic.
Wanderers signed off for the international break with a 1-0 win on the road against Crewe Alexandra thanks to Amadou Bakayoko's late strike after coming off the bench.
The win leaves Bolton nine points from the top six with seven matches left to go of their season.
READ MORE: Ex-QPR and Nottingham Forest forward's frank verdict on Bolton's play-off chances after Crewe win
Next up for Wanderers is a big derby clash on the road against the Latics at the DW Stadium, as Leam Richardson's side aim for automatic promotion to the Championship.
Wanderers have a quartet of players heading off on international duty with Dion Charles linking up with Northern Ireland, Jon Dadi Bodvarsson to play for Iceland and Manchester City loanee James Trafford playing for England under-20s.
Bakayoko is set to link up Sierra Leone too, though Evatt expressed some doubt if that might happen as the attacker picked up a calf problem in the victory.
But the Bolton boss hopes his players do well for their national teams and come back in good condition, ready for seven 'cup finals' in April starting against Wigan when they return.
Evatt said: “We’ve got seven cup finals to go and obviously a huge one at Wigan when we return from the international break. We hope and wish our lads all the best and well.
"I think to be honest Baka hurt his calf when he came on so whether he’ll travel or not, I don’t know, that’s a bit of a worry at the moment, but other than that we wish them well and just come back in one piece.
"We’ll prepare properly for Wigan as we always do and give it our best shot.
“I’ve not had this so far in my career (having several players on international duty) so it’s something new. Some sleepless nights!
"I’ve packed them off with some cotton wool so hopefully they’ll wrap themselves up in it and come back in one piece.
"This (Crewe game) has been our Kryptonite all season if you go back to Fleetwood and Burton, this is probably worse than Burton’s pitch to be honest.
"But we didn’t really look like conceding, we looked more solid and we played in better areas. We learnt our lesson in the second half and I thought we deserved to win the game.”
