Ian Evatt is smiling. “We do still have one or two moans and groans from the sides, the odd ‘get it forward’ shout,” the Bolton Wanderers manager says as he playfully recalls an incident at home to Exeter City just over a fortnight ago.
Bolton were 7-0 up after the latest exhibition of tiki-taka football from the most progressive, expansive team in League One when captain Ricardo Santos got jeered for checking a run on the halfway line rather than trying to drive forward deep into stoppage time. “They were ironic, I think!” Evatt adds, laughing. “All in good spirit!”.
There was a time not too long ago when, with Bolton on the brink of going bust under an asset-stripping former owner, the chants at the Toughsheet Community Stadium were only of the dark, despairing kind.
But a great renaissance story is unfolding in the foothills of the West Pennine Moors and, on Monday night when first meets second in League One, a wider audience will get a glimpse of what Evatt likes to call “Bolton Wanderers 2.0”.
Beat Portsmouth at Fratton Park in front of the Sky Sports cameras and they will go top and for the man whose old Barrow team earned the moniker “Barrowcelona” for the way they won promotion from the National League in 2020, it is a chance to showcase his latest arresting project.
“We know it’s going to be our toughest test yet so we’re hoping we can execute a really good performance where the whole nation tunes in to see what Bolton Wanderers are now about,” Evatt says.
Bolton’s emergence from the depths of despair, when administration felt a more frequent occurrence than victories and oblivion threatened, and the foot of League Two to within clear sight of the Championship is a triumph for the work of Evatt, chair Sharon Brittan, sporting director Chris Markham, chief executive Neil Hart and everyone around them.
Almost 25,000 were in the ground to watch Bolton beat Blackpool last month and, if the publicity shy, inspiring Brittan – “the best owner in football”, according to Evatt – has helped reconnect the club with fans and the community off the pitch, then the manager has got them revelling in the bewitching entertainment on it.
Evatt’s Bolton are a bold, brave, attacking construct firmly in the Pep Guardiola mould who play out from the back and, in his words, want to “dominate every phase of the game, with and without the ball and in transition”.
An avid reader and keen follower of American sports, Evatt draws inspiration from many areas and does not mind admitting he prefers being a manager and coach than a player.
One of those inspirations is Bill Walsh, the pioneering former head coach of the great San Francisco 49ers NFL side of the 1980s who popularised the so-called West Coast offence, which placed greater emphasis on passing than running.
Walsh’s seminal book, The Score Takes Care Of Itself, was prominent in Evatt’s mind when creating what he calls a “commitment to excellence piece” that clearly documented to staff and players alike “what the new 2.0 Bolton Wanderers is going to stand for”.
Close friends with another upwardly mobile manager, Rob Edwards at Luton Town, the pair are often on the phone exchanging ideas, although one suspects that will not be the case in the build-up to next month’s FA Cup third round tie between the teams. He is still in contact with his old manager at Blackpool, Ian Holloway, under whom he played in the Premier League and who is “the biggest influence on me in terms of how important the culture and environment is at a football club”. “That’s the biggest undervalued tool you can build for nothing,” Evatt adds, and he and Brittan have certainly done that at Bolton.
Evatt is also a big fan of Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi and his methods and, much like the Italian, it is not uncommon to find him drilling his Bolton players for hours on the training ground or through video analysis on the granular details of a finely tuned playing structure.