Ian Evatt savours ‘quality’ winner as Bolton edge Oxford in thriller

Bolton boss Ian Evatt saluted a “quality winning goal” after Amadou Bakayoko earned the Trotters a 3-2 win at League One play-off chasers Oxford.

Billy Bodin had scored twice for Oxford, but Declan John and Marlon Fossey responded quickly with equalisers before Bakayoko turned in Fossey’s cross to finish off a pacy break five minutes from time.

Evatt said: “I must say I thought it was a great advert for League One football.

“All five goals were very good goals and our third goal was a quality winning goal, worthy of winning any game. It was a great pass, great cross and great finish.

“Marlon’s a talented boy. We bought him in with one eye on the future.

“It was a huge game for us. We are still a long way behind other teams and there’s a lot of catching up to do, we know that, but there are 13 games to go and we just have to keep working hard.

“I had a points total in my mind and this is just one more tick along the way.

“We came into it in very confident mood and we have a good mindset so we managed to respond well to going behind.

“Oxford are a very dangerous side, especially in terms of attacking, and we needed to go punch-to-punch with them.

“Again the bench has made a difference for us. The boys that came on did great.

“I feel we can score plenty of goals in every game. Bakayoko is a crucial player for us – he’s a proper number nine – but he’s had a run of injuries so we’ve not had a real run of games with him.

“This is a very good group but there’s still a lot of things to work on.”

For Oxford it was a second successive defeat after a 2-0 loss at Accrington in midweek.

Boss Karl Robinson said: “I thought the first half was very even and in the second half we were the better team.

“We dominated territorially and it was very frustrating that their third goal came from our corner. That was the only time we switched off the whole of the second half.

“It wasn’t something we had worked on. I know (regular corner taker) Billy Bodin had gone off but we still should have done better with it and not got turned over so easily, and then our players were out of position. It was a fantastic pass and goal for them.

“From us it was a very, very good team performance. We were good in a lot of our play.

“They were two wonderful goals from Bodin and we showed ourselves as a good team without getting the result.

“We can’t keep conceding the goals we’re conceding but they are all different types of goals.

“They made more mistakes than us but we didn’t capitalise as well on theirs as we could have done.”