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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
John McDougall

Why Ian Evatt went into the stands during part of Bolton Wanderers' win over Walsall

Ian Evatt has explained why he spent a bit of time in the second half in the stands at the University of Bolton Stadium during Bolton's win over Walsall.

The Trotters went behind in a first half where they were not at their best to a half volley from Saddlers man Sam Perry.

But Bolton rallied after the break and deservedly got back into the game thanks to Kieran Lee's close range header.

The visitors were reduced to 10 men when Hayden White was shown a straight red card for raising his hands against Oladapo Afolayan.

And Wanderers took advantage of their extra man when Lee was fouled in the box and Eoin Doyle slotted home from the penalty spot to secure a 2-1 victory.

Evatt spent around five minutes of the second half from a higher vantage point in the stands to get a better view of the action.

It helped Evatt and his assistant Peter Atherton get a better idea of where the space was in the Saddlers' rearguard that Wanderers could exploit.

And the Bolton boss was pleased that the Trotters were able to finds solutions on the pitch as they went 12 games unbeaten and rose to fifth in the League Two table.

He said: "I think we do a lot of analysis work and we’ll try and paint pictures to the players about where we think we can hurt them, where we think the space will be and then the opposition come and do something completely different or slightly different and sometimes it’s hard for the players to see or figure it out.

"That’s why I went and stood upstairs in the stands for five minutes just so I could get a picture of where the space on the pitch was.

"Sometimes at pitch level, you don’t really see it clearly and then once I went up there, myself and Peter discussed it, we knew where the space would be second half from the way we switched it out and Kieran (Lee) just pulled away.

"Referees are key and they normally take up great positions and if you can just play off the back of the referee as that number 10 or third midfield player there’s always good space there and we found that solution second half which was great.

"I did it at Barrow a couple of times and sometimes when the opposition are throwing a different look at you, you get a much clearer view from up there and you can see things lot more clearer and that definitely helped.

“On our analysis work we predict where we think the space will be and if the opposition change what they usually do, then we have to find solutions and that’s my job and Pete’s job and also the players’ job to do that.

"We’ve all found a solution together and we’ve ended up getting the right result.”

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