Bolton Wanderers came from behind to return to winning ways in League One with a 3-1 victory over Charlton Athletic.
Scott Fraser put the hosts into the lead early on after capitalising on George Johnston's error. But Conor Bradley struck not long after to put Bolton back on level terms.
The Whites went ahead before the break when Kieran Lee found the net. After half-time, Johnston helped to atone for his earlier error to score Bolton's third.
READ MORE: Bolton Wanderers player ratings vs Charlton Athletic - Thomason great as Lee & Bradley impress
Wanderers also had to call upon James Trafford to contain the visitors, denying Jesurn Rak-Sakyi on a couple of occasions. The win sees Bolton sitting eighth in the table on 11 points.
After the game, Wanderers boss Ian Evatt gave his immediate reaction and here's what he had to say.
You must be happy?
“We knew this was going to be a tough game because they’re a good team, a technical team, they play in a really brave expansive manner so the gameplan was obviously to really press them high, don’t allow them to settle, go man for man so we needed that type of player on the pitch for us that could execute the gameplan accordingly and I think we did that perfectly well.”
What did you think when you conceded another early goal?
“I just thought another individual mistake, when are we going to cut these out? But to be honest I’m really proud of the way we just reacted, we just reset. We learnt our lesson against Sheffield Wednesday that if you concede one, never become two, and I thought we just settled straight down, reset our mentality and mindset and went again, stuck to the gameplan and was delighted that we got our reward.”
You must be pleased as well with the recovery overall and the way you came back?
“Exactly and at the moment we’re giving ourselves an uphill task and challenge but I’ve got an enormous amount of belief in these players. A huge amount of belief in them all and I’ve just spoke to them there that each game provides a different challenge and task and for that challenge and task we need different personnel and it’s down to me to select the correct personnel on any given day and people will be rotated, people will be moved in and out of the game, in and out of situations in and out of the match, and they have to stick to their beliefs, stick with each other.
“If they’re going to be miserable and mardy then do it with me in my office. I don’t mind, it’s my decisions, but with each other they need to be positive because when it’s their turn, they’ll need the players’ support from off the bench as well. We’ve got a really good and strong squad and that’s where I didn’t really feel the need to push and further strengthen on Thursday.
“I do find deadline days more reactive than being proactive and I think what we’ve tried to do is be proactive with our recruitment over the last few windows and I think we’ve developed a pretty good team.”
You’ve got a free week now?
“Yeah we have. We can get a bit of recovery now for a day or two and then really concentrate on Cheltenham and another big week next week. But I’m delighted for the players because I thought that week we had, they didn’t really get what they deserved.
"I think three defeats can look awful, especially when two out of the three were at home but I thought that it was the moments that we lost in those games, the general performance we played really well and performed well. So it’s great that they’ve bounced back with a victory on Tuesday and then another victory today.”
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