Evatt’s view on Dixon’s Bolton future after costly Hartlepool error

Ian Evatt has vowed that Bolton Wanderers goalkeeper Joel Dixon has and will come back from his error against Hartlepool United which proved to be costly as they were dumped out of the Papa John’s Trophy.

Wanderers were dumped out of the competition at the last 16 stage with a late 1-0 loss at the Victoria Ground.

Bolton dominated for large parts of the clash against the League Two side but were unable to finish off several of the chances they were able to carve out against a defensively resolute Pools team.

READ MORE: ‘Furious’ Bolton boss Ian Evatt on ‘unforgivable’ Hartlepool loss and Joel Dixon error

And Matty Daly scored what proved to be what separated the two sides just before full-time as he pounced on Wanderers stopper Dixon’s short pass and rounded the goalkeeper to tap home into an empty net.

Evatt has backed his goalkeeper to come back from the mistake and admitted that some harsh words were delivered in the dressing room after the loss as he believes Dixon must take the criticism which will come his way on the chin, as must Wanderers as a whole too.

He said: “He has to come back and he will, but when you make mistakes in high profile sport and elite sport, you have acknowledge them, learn from them and take them on the chin.

“He’s going to be criticised, I’m going to be criticised, the players are going to be criticised. We have to just keep going, keep our heads down, keep our focus, and move on to the next game.

“But take the goal out of it, I think there are large parts of tonight that we looked like our normal selves again, we looked like we moved the ball well, we looked like we had more energy, more speed to our play in difficult circumstances.

“We just have to be more clinical and ruthless in the final third and then not shoot ourselves in the foot like we did in the last 10 minutes.

“Yeah absolutely (harsh words in the dressing room) and rightly so because there’s no way we should have lost that game. We’ve just shot ourselves in the foot once again. We need to be better, we need to improve quickly.

“This is our second game in four weeks. It’s been difficult for us. We’ve had Covid issues, we’ve had injury issues, we’ve had lack of form issues. There have been some (poor) performances like Stockport away, Wigan at home, Fleetwood away but Saturday was a moral victory, but I’m sick of moral victories – I just want victories.

“We should be getting more results than what we’re getting at the moment and things need to change and we need to be better and we’re working really hard to make sure things they change.

“But we have to sometimes take all this on the chin. Joel has to but we all have to individually and they have to start holding each other accountable because that isn’t acceptable to lose a game in that fashion is criminal.”