Wigan Athletic raid can help Bolton Wanderers, Ian Evatt to promotion given October 2023 exit: View | OneFootball

Bolton Wanderers have brought in a new member for Ian Evatt's coaching staff with Stephen Crainey departing local rivals Wigan Athletic.

Bolton Wanderers have made two signings so far this summer with the arrivals of Chris Forino and Luke Southwood on free transfers from Wycombe Wanderers and Cheltenham Town respectively, but it may well be an off-the-pitch recruit that is the biggest difference maker this season.

On Tuesday it was announced that Bolton had agreed a compensation package with Lancastrian rivals Wigan Athletic for the Latics’ first-team coach, Stephen Crainey, with Crainey becoming ‘joint assistant manager’, alongside Peter Atherton, to Ian Evatt.

Wanderers will be looking to once again push for promotion from League One after being losing play-off semi-finalists in 2023 and then play-off finalists in 2024, losing 2-0 to Oxford United at Wembley Stadium last month.

An extra pair of hands and set of eyes could well be the difference between Bolton narrowly missing out on automatic promotion on the final day of the season and pushing themselves over the line in what is set to be an ultra-competitive and strong League One.

The Sam Hird, Bolton enigma

Many Bolton Wanderers supporters believed, or even still believe, in a correlation between Wanderers’ declining performances over the course of the 2023/24 season and the departure of then first-team coach Sam Hird back in late-September.

Hird, who played alongside Evatt at Chesterfield before then captaining his National League winning Barrow side back in 2020, followed Evatt to Lancashire and in July 2021 as Wanderers’ first-team coach as well as manager of the newly formed ‘B’ Team, catching the eye of many teams and even turning down the managerial position at York City in the early winter of 2022.

Hird departed the club for a role with the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) and is not currently involved in a coaching capacity at any club, but his role within the first-team was left unfulfilled with Matt Craddock assuming ‘B’ team responsibilities.

Wanderers had begun the season extremely well and actually initially went on their best run of the season through mid-October to late-November, but there was a significant stagnation in performances and results, with Wanderers actually winning just 11 of 29 matches across all competitions in the calendar year of 2024.

Wanderers have been effectively a man lighter ever since his departure, so, on a very basic level numerically and in terms of delegation, Crainey slots into that role, but there will be a belief and a hope that his pedigree as a coach will lead to more tactical flexibility and tweaking.

Questioning decisions and a fresh tactical perspective

With 25 minutes left of Bolton’s season, chasing two goals against Oxford at Wembley, rather than change the formation that he has persisted with throughout the last two and a half years, Evatt decided to substitute top scorer Dion Charles and Player of the Year Josh Sheehan.

It was perhaps the denouement of Evatt’s stubbornness. Whilst a good coach and a man that has lifted a club that was in disarray into something that should soon be of second division status, he has his weaknesses and blind spots.

Crainey, who has been in the managerial hotseat himself when at Fleetwood Town when he steered them clear of League One relegation on the final day of the season before working with the academy and then the first-team at Wigan Athletic, will help offer a fresh perspective and hopefully an ability to challenge decisions and ideas that have not worked in the past on repeated occasions.

Former Scotland international Crainey did, though, play with a 3-4-1-2 system for much of his tenure at Highbury and there will be a concern that this could be described very cynically as a ‘jobs for the boys’ appointment.

Hird, as mentioned, had a pre-existing relationship with Evatt, whilst Crainey played alongside Evatt in Blackpool’s defence. Other members of that Blackpool defence, Matt Gilks, who is now Wanderers’ goalkeeping coach after being a player-coach for two seasons, and Alex Baptiste, who played for Bolton in Evatt’s first two seasons, have also been brought in by Evatt, who appears to, if not have carte blanche, an extremely heavy say in almost everything at the club.

That said, Crainey offers a pedigree of being a former League One manager that many clubs in the third-tier would love to have simply as just a part of the backroom staff.

Crainey’s influence could be crucial in offering a slightly fresher approach to the methods that Evatt and his long-time assistant Peter Atherton have implemented over the last four years.

It is often said that a manager’s influence or tactical instruction and drive, when at a club for a long time, can become stagnant or stale. Good examples of managers or head coaches who consistently did or do change their coaching staff quite regularly are arguably the best in history: Sir Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola, with the latter being someone who Ian Evatt is a self-confessed disciple of.

Wanderers need something to change in order to shift away from 11 victories in 29 matches across all competitions in 2024 and pinching the first-team coach of their local rival could be the sign of intent that many supporters have been waiting for this summer.