Rovers will be ‘busy in January’, says new boss

NEW Bristol Rovers head coach Steve Evans, right, declared that the Gas will be “busy in January,” as they look to steer clear of the League Two relegation zone after a run of ten consecutive league defeats.

After last night’s game at Crewe, which ended after the Press’s deadline, there are two home games Bromley on Boxing Day and Barnet on December 29 - to allow Evans to have a look at the current squad before the transfer window opens. Then there are two away games in quick succession against Shrewsbury Town on New Year’s Day and Barrow on January 4.

Evans said: “I think we have to give players the opportunity. There are two or three I didn’t really know. I knew the name, but I didn’t know them. So they’ve done really well, but we’ve had a brilliant response from the skipper, brilliant response from what I would say is the leadership group, the older guys in the group, and what we had today was 20 young men on the training ground, trying to earn their shirts at Crewe.

“And I said to them afterwards, if we have that same application every week going forward, if you can get that ability out the locker, which we think you’ve got ... then we’ll do enough to refrain from some of the recruitment in January, but we’ll be busy in January for sure.”

The former Rotherham United and Leeds United manager was announced earlier this week as the head coach on a short-term deal until the end of the campaign.

When asked about adding Rovers to his managerial resume and the reasons why he signed a short-term contract, Evans said: “I think the board were thinking longer term for me. My view is, until you work with the squad, you don’t know what you’ve got, and there was assurances to strengthen it, which we will try and do, but players currently here will decide what we do.

“Yeah, from my point of view, it’s just I insisted on short-term. I don’t want to manage in the National League. I don’t think I’m going to go down that road. I may have to in the future, but I don’t want to. And I don’t want to be thinking other than we have a positive four or five months, we get to the summer and we put a squad and a team in place Ricky [Martin] and myself and Paul [Raynor] working really hard. Supporters can rest assured that they can criticise but I speak as a point. The owners must shake their head. They must cry now because they get undeserved criticism, supporters don’t see that, supporters see results.

“I understand that, but there’s never been a football club on the planet that when results are not good, the board don’t get criticised. If you look at Glasgow Celtic, they won the treble last year, and this year, the owner’s not very good, so there’s nothing to do with the owner last year.

“So just let’s all throw the rope in the same direction, and if we can do that, this proud football club will have some good times ahead. It needs good times, we’re working hard to bring them there.”

A conundrum for the Gas this season has been scoring the goals, as they are the lowest scorers in League Two after 20 games, with only 15. Injuries have not helped, with Ellis Harrison and Promise Omochere currently sidelined. The main striker options currently are Fabrizio Cavegn and Callum Morton, who despite being talented players, are a different sort of forward to Harrison and Omochere, who thrive with their back to goal.

Speaking about the profile of strikers they will target in January, Evans said: “Yeah, I think in the words of Sir Alex Ferguson, you want a striker that scores a goal, don’t you? That’s what you want. And if they’re not scoring goals, you’ve got to identify the reasons. The reasons could be, that they’re playing in a team that doesn’t make enough chances. And that’s a bona fide reason, or you could be a team that makes chances.

“You know, one of the lads I signed from Newcastle Reserves, Ivan Toney, who is now a famous name, and he’s overseas. But when Ivan joined us, he scored goals, but he didn’t score as many goals as he should score, because he spent too many times trying to play as the number 10. And we worked really hard ... to get him in a position where he could score a goal, because he is a sublime, fantastic goalscorer. You’re meant to get him in the position to score a goal.

“So now we’re working through the group with the strikers - we’ve got to see whether they can score a goal, or whether we’re not making chances, or whether it’s their positional play, that can be a cause, it takes them out of the position when we win the ball to create a chance for them to be in the position to score. But sometimes a sign of a striker is being between the sticks, because if you’re between the posts, you get more chance of scoring a goal.”

Evans’ first game as Rovers boss was last night’s trip to Crewe Alexandra.