By james art Peterborough United visit the Toughsheet Stadium on Saturday, with Stockport County, Blackpool and Rotherham United coming in November, all teams likely to test the manager’s belief that his side are now returning to the standards they set in their pursuit of the top two last season.
Evatt claims Birmingham’s spending power puts them in a league of their own, but he accepts bigger decisions are just around the corner.
“That’s fair,” he told The Bolton News. “I don’t think we should compare ourselves to Birmingham, they are exceptional in their own right. I don’t think it’s a direct comparison.
“Obviously, some of the other teams we’re up against are the ones we have to compare ourselves to.
“I would like a fully healthy squad to choose from, that would make things a bit easier, but we are where we are, we have to find ways to suit the personnel we have.”
Relegated from the Championship last season, Birmingham City found themselves playing third-tier football for the first time since 1995 when they were crowned champions with Steve Claridge scoring 20 league goals.
Expectations that they would follow suit were fueled by an unprecedented spending spree on more than a dozen permanent and four loan deals, including £11m for Fulham striker Jay Stansfield, making him the most expensive player ever bought at this level of football .
Backed by American investors, including NFL legend Tom Brady, and managed by former Celtic, Tottenham and Leicester City coach Chris Davies, the Blues rode that wave of titles to make an excellent start, beaten just once in their first two games.
“I’m not going to sit here and whine about spending, because if I were Chris, I’d be happy,” Evatt said.
“That comes with its own pressures. They spent more on one player than the entire budget. This shows the difference and where the comparisons should stop.
“We’re in the same division and if it was as easy as whoever spends the most money wins, football would be pretty boring. They started well, I don’t envy them in any way, it’s part of the game. Eating brings its own challenges, and I’m sure Chris would explain that himself.
“They’ve got a lot of talented players and they like to play in a style that’s more suited to the top echelons of football and I think we’d like to think we’re in that category as well, so I think it would be a good game. I look forward to the experience.
“It’s almost home for me. I haven’t smelled the air of the West Midlands for a while so it will be good to get back there and do the best we can. I’ve got some decent memories there as a player so fingers crossed we do well, show what we’re about.”
Wanderers have provided spending power to allow him to make some significant signings in 2024, including Aaron Collins, Schön Szabolch and John McAtee, giving him the biggest budget he has had in four seasons.
“There’s always outside pressure at this football club, without a doubt,” Evatt said. “There’s pressure from all over, but believe me when I say that nobody puts more on me than me.
“I want to be as good as possible. I want to get to the top of my game. I want to work hard to make that happen.
“I’m still learning, I won’t deny that, but I’m willing to learn. You have to be willing to learn in this game because standing still exposes you and we constantly have to move and evolve, get better.
“The sticky starts and the tough results, the moments where you feel like the world is against you, really makes you stronger and gives you clarity of thought about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it.
“We have to believe in what we are doing. I’m a strong person and I believe in what we do, it’s my job to make the fans and players believe, to make things better.
“I think we’re getting better and there’s more to come, I think we can show that in the coming weeks, especially when we get people back who are shooting and available.”
Wanderers have won four of their last five games to recover from what has been a poor start, although Evatt disagrees with the claim that his side are still playing “within themselves” at the moment.
“I think it’s a bit harsh, what I would probably say is there’s more to come,” he added.
“We’re not firing on all cylinders, but I don’t necessarily expect us to be right now.
“Given what happened earlier in the season and how difficult this start was, the difficulty of managing the environment and the situation, we’re not a million miles from where we want to be. I think if we win our extra game we’re three points off the top two, which isn’t bad considering everyone thought it was a disaster early on.
“We started to recover and get results. There are games where we’ve won and played well, Northampton was a great example, Reading as well and look what they’ve done since then. But we also found different ways to win.
“Parts of Saturday were really good, the first 20 minutes and also the first 20 minutes of the second half. It hasn’t been so good so far, but I think there’s more to come.
“We are trying to adapt. What we’ve been labeled as is that we’re very one-dimensional and we’re not winning games in different ways, but we’re trying to. We always want to dominate possession and we always want to be aggressive without the ball, but there are different ways to achieve that.
“We’re trying to find ways while we’re in the middle of some key injuries, which is our way as well. We always seem to have a big injury list and we’re trying to figure out why and improve it.”
On Saturday, Evatt suddenly found his plans turned upside down by the loss of captain George Thomasson to injury, with Nathan Baxter and Eoin Toal also declared unavailable.
Absences led to a rather unconvincing win against bottom club Burton Albion, but Evatt hopes his next squads against Birmingham and Peterborough will put in a more even performance.
“I have to say that’s my job, that’s what I’m paid for, but it’s not easy to balance this team,” he said. “It was quite a challenge and we were quite unequal.
“Randall Williams played more aggressively from that inverted right side, which is something we haven’t done a lot, John McAtee was a number eight, which we haven’t done a lot.
“He was aggressive, he was slanted, but that was what was needed for this game. Hopefully with the bodies back we can be a little bit more balanced now and have a better plan that fits what we want to do for next week.”