Town chief hails the job done by ex-Tangerines team-mate at 'dangerous' Bolton Wanderers

Hatters chief Rob Edwards lauded the job that his ex-Blackpool team-mate Ian Evatt has been doing for today’s FA Cup third round opponents Bolton Wanderers.

The 42-year-old was a defender by trade in his playing days, moving to Bloomfield Road on loan from QPR in August 2006, making the switch permanent the following January, with the club winning promotion from League One that season. He was then joined a year later by Edwards following his departure from Wolverhampton Wanderers, the pair helping the Tangerines reach the Premier League with a 3-2 play-off final win over Cardiff City at Wembley in 2010.

Evatt left in 2013, just after the Luton chief had made his exit, moving to Chesterfield, as he took over the Spireites as caretaker manager following his decision to retire in 2018, unable to prevent relegation to non-league. Moving to Barrow in the summer, he masterminded the Bluebirds’ reaching the the Football League as National League champions in 2020, before the Trotters made their move in June 2020, as Evatt replaced Keith Hill in the Wanderers’ dug-out.

He won promotion to League One in his first season, then finishing ninth in the third tier, as last term he won the EFL Trophy when beating Plymouth Argyle 4-0 in the final, going on to lose out in the play-offs to Barnsley though. The current campaign has seen Evatt win the manager of the month award twice, with Bolton well set for a second promotion in two years, sitting second in the table, just two points off Portsmouth with two games in hand.

Speaking about going head-to-head with the Trotters chief, Edwards said: “I know Evo well, he’s a former team-mate of mine, we had three years together at Blackpool, successful times as well. He’s someone who as a player maximised what he was and did really, really well, a very good player and he’s taken to management very well as well. He got promotion with Barrow, plays a really good style and Bolton are a big football club.

"He’s been tasked with helping to reshape and rebuild that football club and he’s doing a very good job of it. They play a really good style of football and they’re winning football matches, so he deserves a lot of credit. He’s done a brilliant job and he’s been building that club now for a number of years. He’s had time, he’s earned that time as he’s got results, won one promotion and come close again last year. So they’re a really dangerous team, a confident team, they’re in good form and it’s a very, very difficult game.

“We will respect them and take them very seriously, as seriously as we take any team in the league that we’re in the moment now as well, because they’re a dangerous team. In this game we’ll be favourites so the pressure is on us and we need to respond well to that.”