Bolton Wanderers boss Ian Evatt admitted he has learnt a lot about his team after they were the architects of their own downfall in the 3-1 pre-season loss against Carlisle United.
The Cumbrians took the lead against the Whites as Ryan Edmondson capitalised on a defensive mix-up at the back for Bolton to put the hosts in front. The League Two side doubled their advantage before half-time from a set piece after Ben Barclay headed home.
Wanderers halved the deficit after the break when Aaron Morley fired home from the penalty spot after former Carlisle midfielder Kyle Dempsey had been brought down in the box. But Carlisle restored their two goal advantage when another defensive lapse saw Kristian Dennis add their third which ensured a 3-1 victory for the hosts and Bolton's second loss for the first team in pre-season.
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Wanderers have a fortnight before their League One opener against Ipswich Town and take on Huddersfield Town next Saturday in their final pre-season friendly. And after his side lost their second game of pre-season with a performance which was overall not to the standard expected, Evatt was pleased his team had done so when it was not a competitive fixture and not when the action for real gets under way on July 30.
He said: “I’m happy it’s out the way today to be honest. You normally get one of these thrown in during pre-season. We win or we learn and we’ve learnt a lot today.
“I’ve learnt a lot today. I think I’ve learnt things aren’t always going to be nice for us and I think if you look at the game, we’ve had a set play and two mistakes that have cost us the game. Other than that, it was pretty much all us, all the ball, but it’s what you do with the ball is what’s important.
“Too many times we were happy to be negative, happy to be slow with the tempo, happy to just move the ball side to side and conserve energy rather than being our intense selves.
“Maybe it’s because of the Watford game and they’ve worked so hard that they were tired, but I’m not making excuses. We have to be better than that, but I’m delighted that it’s happened now and not on July 30.
“It was self-inflicted. We’re trying to get ourselves to what I call the Holy Grail and for me, it’s what Man City and Liverpool are and that is a team that can keep the ball and are possession-based but also have that edge, that edge ruthless intensity and edge out of possession and don’t make mistakes.
“We talk a lot about teams that completely sacrifice the ball and try and play on the counter attack and they did that today and that’s where you have to work on and if it’s 60 or 70 minutes where they fatigue and like we scored last season late on, then we score late on in the game then that’s what you do. The early goal was obviously great because it changes everything, but if you don’t get that the score has to be 0-0 and today it’s self-inflicted, the score wasn’t 0-0 and we’ve given ourselves a mountain to climb.
“It just summed it up that just as we get a head of steam up and a goal, we then again just shoot ourselves in the foot but no damage done. It’s a wake-up call, it gives them the chance to see the other side of me.
“Whether it’s a friendly or not I want to win, we’re in a business of winning and from January really, a large majority of those players haven’t seen me lose my rag, so maybe it’s the best thing that could have happened to us today.”
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