Ian Evatt rails at disallowed goal as Bolton draw blank against lowly Colchester

Posted Friday, April 02, 2021 by PA

Ian Evatt claimed Eoin Doyle’s disallowed strike for offside should have stood as the Bolton boss expressed his frustration following Friday’s Sky Bet League Two stalemate with struggling Colchester.

Declan John hit the bar with an early free-kick before Bolton’s top scorer Doyle saw his 29th-minute effort ruled out, while Colchester’s Noah Chilvers volleyed over when in a good position in the 57th minute.

Bolton moved into an automatic promotion place for the first time this season but Evatt was not satisfied.

“We scored a legitimate goal in the first half and hit the bar twice,” said the manager after Wanderers extended their unbeaten run to 14 matches.

“When teams come here and play for a point from minute one then the first goal becomes pivotal.

“They celebrated a draw like it was an FA Cup final.

“It’s a rarity at this level that teams give you that amount of respect and camp in and make it extremely difficult for you.

“But fair play to them. That’s what they need to stay in this division. Colchester had a right go and you can’t take that away from them.

“They ran their socks off and defended for their lives and with a new manager in charge that normally happens.

“Our players lost a bit of belief, particularly in the second half, and we started forcing things because we hadn’t got that goal.

“It’s another game undefeated but we probably had too many players below par.”

Colchester’s point lifted them five points above the drop zone and gave Hayden Mullins his first point since taking over as head coach.

“We knew how tough the game would be because of the run of form Bolton were on,” he said.

“They are a good side, with a big budget and fantastic players. So it was about us pulling in the same direction as a team.

“We had a game plan to try and stop them, to try and slow their game down and also hit them on the counter-attack.

“I thought we had some good opportunities to do so. We had a good spell in the second half when we were on top so all in all it is a good point.”

When asked about Doyle’s disallowed strike, Mullins said: “I haven’t seen that one back so I can’t comment.

“There was a lot going on with a couple of shots and deflections. But what I will say is you make your own luck and the boys deserved that because they worked really hard.

“The lads in midfield were really good, so too the wide players and the full-backs in terms of stopping Bolton. We knew they have threats all over the pitch. But on the back of that I thought we played some good stuff.”