1 week Ago
“IT doesn’t matter who is in charge, the mindset is going to be the same.” The words of a wounded Ian Evatt back in January as he snarled through a post-match press conference after defeat at Rotherham United. His players had unquestionably let him down with his performance that bitterly cold afternoon in South Yorkshire, bullied by a Steve Evans team playing to type.
The former Bolton boss would remain in post for just two more league games but had long-since lost the fanbase, who had spent the whole game barracking a style of football that was quite simply not cutting it any longer. “It’s my fault, my fault,” he complained. “It’s not.
It’s a collective. And the players have to take responsibility as well. “I don’t send my players out to play and perform and show that lack of fight, courage and energy.
“I think it’s time I called them out because it’s me that gets it all.” Defeat at the New York Stadium was a blow from which Evatt would not recover and the manifestation of an issue he failed to clear in his four-and-a-half-year reign. It had long been felt that Bolton’s inability to deal with physical, direct teams, whose style clashed with their own was one of the major reasons they had failed to escape League One.
Nearly three months later there will be two different faces in the dugout. Evans was sacked last week, unable to replicate his previous success with the Millers and have them compete for an immediate return to the Championship. In fact, they have not climbed higher than 13th at time of writing.
Steven Schumacher has had 13 games in charge of Bolton and already supplied evidence to contradict Evatt’s statement back in January. The mindset has changed, even if some of the tactical issues which had hampered Wanderers in the first half of the season have not disappeared entirely. Though there have been setbacks for the new boss, belief within the camp and on the terraces has remained consistent.
None of the defeats thus far have felt quite as damaging, nor performances so discomforting as the one at Rotherham, which has enabled the Whites to get themselves firmly back into the mix for the play-offs. Pressure on the new boss has not been quite as severe. Evatt’s own bombast and target setting meant that nothing other than automatic promotion would have been viewed as success, yet Schumacher has picked up the baton with a more under-stated style, still ambitious but less likely to discuss outside the walls of the dressing room.
As Aaron Collins noted after a narrow win against Bristol Rovers on Saturday, some of this newfound confidence has been drawn from the knowledge that if ‘Plan A’ is not working for the Whites, the man in charge is happy to change. Furthermore, fans would have trouble identifying Schumacher’s ‘system’ as, put bluntly, there isn’t a singular one. Whether one develops over time, we shall see, but for now the ability to switch and change shape, placing more trust on the players – and their mentality – has brought about positive results.
From being castigated for their weaknesses at the start of the year, the messaging from the manager’s office is now very different. “I think the players here are actually a really intelligent group - and you don't say that too often about football players,” Schumacher smiled after Saturday’s win. “They are actually pretty good.
Tactically, they seem to take on information well, and everything that we're asking them to do and how we're trying to explain it, we try and keep it as simple as possible for them. “But they can adjust and adapt to different systems. You see today, I think you played three different systems in one game, and I only have to shout it on to a certain couple of players who understand it and then they organise for me.
And when you've got intelligent players like that, it makes my job a bit easier.” Rotherham won’t make things easy. Though Evans has left the building the team still has his fingerprints on it, and a physical battle must be expected.
The loss of Will Forrester to a hamstring injury at the weekend is a blow for Wanderers and will test Schumacher’s decision-making skills as he chooses whether to bring in a ball-playing option like George Thomason, experience in Gethin Jones, or perhaps even a wildcard in the fit-again Ricardo Santos. Alternatively, the formation could change altogether and bring in a different list of possibilities – for that is the way of things at Bolton these days..
