Bolton Wanderers manager Ian Evatt makes ‘nervous’ claim surrounding Aston Villa following Carabao Cup fixture

Bolton Wanderers manager Ian Evatt believes his side made Aston Villa nervous when they took a 1-0 lead on Tuesday evening and felt the final scoreline of 4-1 was harsh on his team.

Dion Charles put Bolton in front against a very strong Villa eleven before Douglas Luiz levelled things up with a goal direct from a corner.

Danny Ings and Lucas Digne put the game out of the home side’s reach just after the hour mark before Leon Bailey scored a superb individual goal to put some gloss on a night that ended up looking far more straightforward than it actually was.

Speaking after the game, Evatt believed that the scoreline ended up looking a little harsh but admits that he had no gripes with the eventual outcome.

“4-1 was probably a bit harsh”, he claimed.

“I think for 60 minutes we were right in the game. I don’t think there’s many teams that would want to go toe-to-toe with Premier League opposition, we’ve tried to do that. We’ve tried to win the ball high up the pitch, press them aggressively, try to keep possession where we could but obviously they are a good team and in the last 20 minutes their quality showed.

“As I said, for 60 minutes I thought we were very good.”

Evatt made six changes to his starting line-up to the side that had started the previous league fixture and that pleased him more than anything conisdering Villa had chosen to go full strength.

He also believes Charles’ opening goal made the claret and blue nervous.

“I think that made them nervous [Charles’ goal] and then the set-play kind of gets them a bit of belief and confidence back,” he added.

“And then obviously the offside, for me he is offside but it’s that tight you probably need VAR to see and after that they got their belief and confidence back and all of a sudden they showed some real quality in the last 20 minutes but for 60 minutes I thought we were excellent.

“They’ve come with their first team and showed us the ultimate respect, we made five or six changes and still give them a really good game so I’m pleased with that.”