Interim boss Julian Darby delighted by Bolton response to Ian Evatt departure

Bolton’s interim manager Julian Darby admitted the players were “devastated” by the departure of boss Ian Evatt but was delighted to provide some reason for cheer with a 1-0 win at Huddersfield.

Wanderers parted company with manager Ian Evatt in the week but responded with a convincing performance against the promotion-chasing Terriers, crowned by Aaron Collins’ second-half goal.

Darby said: “The number of messages of good luck and, ‘It doesn’t matter what happens, just flipping go and enjoy it, it doesn’t matter how you go on’.

“Well, I’ll take flipping that and a victory as well. Three points, I couldn’t ask for any better really.

“I think a lot of the credit has got to be given to Ian Evatt and his staff. The lads were devastated that it happened, but things happen in football, as you know.

“There’s been a lot of negativity around the club virtually since probably Wembley last year (the League One play-off final loss to Oxford) and it’s been hard to shake that off.

“So it’s great for the players – they’re all in the dressing room singing away, so it’s great for them and great for all the staff as well, who have been through the wringer a bit.

“We’ve come to Huddersfield, who are on the back of a 16-game unbeaten run, they’re fourth in the league, and we’ve come to frustrate them and I thought we did that. We slowed the game down and they couldn’t really find
any passes.”

Huddersfield boss Michael Duff told his side to “remember the feeling of losing” after seeing their long unbeaten streak turn into a run of one win in five games.

He said: “It was a lack of quality from our point of view. We had loads of the ball, but no final cross, final pass or runs.

“We open up the middle of the pitch and we can’t find a pass into the centre-forwards and we got done with a sucker punch really.

“Bolton started the game really well, but after the first 10-15 minutes most of the game was played in their half. They did really well and we fell down on quality.

“I thought we did enough to get something out of the game but we can’t keep giving ourselves holes to get out of and this time we didn’t do it.

“We’ve got four months to go and losing is not a nice feeling. Bolton have come in and are whooping it up in the dressing room afterwards – no problem with that, they’ve won the game – and we need to just remember the feeling of losing.”