IAN Evatt’s fledgling managerial career has not yet taken him higher than League Two, but that doesn’t stop him from setting the bar high when it comes to role models in the game.

“You have to as a young coach and manager learn from the best,” said the Wanderers boss.

“In my opinion they are (Pep) Guardiola, (Jose) Mourinho, (Jurgen) Klopp, (Marcelo) Bielsa – top, top managers, and if you can take a bit from them and implement it yourself in your own way, then it can only be good for you.

“You have to keep adapting and learning and progressing with football, because it changes quickly.

“Yes it is hard work and they’ll tell you that on the training pitch.

“How you practice defines who you are and if we practice the way we play, all of a sudden it becomes more natural and easy to do on a matchday and that’s what we’re trying to implement here.”

But while Evatt is prepared to be flexible, in his first few months at the Wanderers’ helm he kept faith with his methods and tactics.

For despite winning only once in his first eight games, he always believed his approach would pay off.

“I made a pact with myself when I first became a manager that if we’re going to do things we’re going to do things the way I want to do it,” he said.

“I have a firm belief in my philosophy, it works, and it’s just about improving that and being better at it.

“Yes, sometimes the expectation and the outside noise can alter your philosophy and how you act and perform professionally. However, I think what we’ve done is we’ve tried to keep ourselves calm in the eye of the storm.

“There’s been a storm all around us but in that eye of the storm we’ve been nice and calm, showing belief, showing confidence and repetitive messaging, and all of a sudden now the players are starting to grab a hold of what we want from them.”

Referring back to the top-flight managers he uses as a model, he added: “They didn’t win anything immediately, they didn’t win anything in their first season.

“It does take time. We’re only five months in to a whole new process, a whole new way of playing with a whole new squad, it’s just repetitive messaging and keep practicing and increasing and demanding standards in training, and having players fit enough and available and we haven’t had all those things all at once.

“We’ve now got them and we’re starting to see the benefit of that.”