Ian Evatt hails Bolton’s second-half performance in victory over Shrewsbury

Posted Sunday, April 23, 2023 by PA

Bolton boss Ian Evatt hailed his side’s second-half performance after his half-time talk worked wonders in a 1-0 League One victory at home to Shrewsbury that kept their play-off hopes alive.

After a frustrating opening half, Wanderers piled on the pressure in the second and were indebted to midfielder Josh Sheehan’s sweetly struck 63rd-minute effort.

Marko Marosi prevented a wider margin of defeat for Steve Cotterill’s visitors who have won only once in their last 10 matches.

“We said at half-time, if they are going to offer us shots from the edge then we should take them,” revealed Evatt.

“We wanted to be more proactive with that and Josh put it away brilliantly.

“The only frustration was in the second half we could and should have scored three or four more goals.

“We hit the crossbar twice, at least twice, we had three one-on-ones, the keeper made some good saves.

“So, hopefully we are keeping our powder dry for the future.

“But it was an excellent second-half performance that should have been more comfortable than it was.

“We all want to see swashbuckling football. We all want to see end-to-end stuff and us creating chance after chance.

“They made it difficult for us but we got there in the end.”

Kyle Dempsey twice went close in an otherwise-frustrating opening half for the Trotters.

But with the Shrews tiring, the chances became more frequent after half-time. Top scorer Dion Charles was denied by Marosi and had a goal disallowed for a foul on Matt Pennington.

Eventually, Sheehan broke the deadlock with his second goal of the season as he fired home a left-footed curler from 25 yards.

Marosi kept the score down to one with further stops from Dempsey, Victor Adeboyejo and Elias Kachunga.

“It is a tough one to take,” admitted Town manager Cotterill. “We knew what it was going to be like and it was no different to what we have had for the last six weeks.

“The lads gave everything again. We knew we would have to sit in, conserve energy, stay organised and maybe take our chance when it came.

“I thought we kept them at arm’s length but we ended up not blocking that shot on edge of the box.

“But when the lads have put in the shift they have this week, the bottom line was, they didn’t have the energy to block the shot.

“They are always all in, they always give their all but we are short. We are more than down to the bare bones, we are down to the marrow. And we have been for about six weeks.

“We are talking about defeats but we haven’t got enough to take these teams on.”