Bolton striker Eoin Doyle ready to hit top form, says Ian Evatt

The 32-year-old has scored in three of his last four games, including goals in back-to-back league wins to lift morale and confidence in the camp.

And after taking a month to get off the mark, Evatt believes Doyle is showing signs of getting on the kind of scoring streak that he is capable of.

“Eoin is first and foremost a fantastic human being and a leader amongst the group,” said the Bolton boss ahead of tonight’s trip to Scunthorpe United.

“He’s a big part of what we want to do here, his character, his professionalism is top drawer and hopefully our young players will learn off that. On top of that he is a magnificent goalscorer who guarantees you goals.

“And I think if you look at most games in most divisions the difference between the teams is the top end of the pitch and who is clinical with their chances and who takes them and I trust Eoin Doyle that when we create the opportunities that we are doing he will take them.”

Striker Doyle helped to fire Swindon Town to the League Two title last season, scoring 25 goals in 34 games before the campaign was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic and a national lockdown.

But Evatt noted a pattern to the 32-year-old’s goalscoring form.

“If you look at his career he always goes through spells of scoring regular goals, he can easily get 10 in seven or 10 in eight, that sort of thing,” the Whites boss said.

“Once he gets on that roll it’s positive for us and hopefully he can keep doing it.”

Evatt is expected to name an unchanged side at Glanford Park tonight. But he stressed it is important that Doyle and co keep setting the bar high to stay in the side, such is the level of competition for places.

“It’s difficult to choose 11, it’s difficult to choose 18, and then you’re leaving people off the bench who are working their socks off during the week and in training sessions that have no end to their week which is unfortunate but it’s part of the game, and they have to understand and respect that,” he said.

“But (I tell them) just take excuses off the table and look after yourself and do all you can to make sure that I don’t have an excuse to leave you out of matchday teams, squad or anything else, and if they do that then there’s no issues with me and there won’t be moving forwards.

“And not only that, it can only help the ones in the team and the ones on the substitutes bench because they should respect their place in the team and respect their place on the bench because, at the moment, if you don’t perform your place is going to come under threat because we’ve got competition for places.”