Evatt was recruited from Barrow at a time when BWFC were at the bottom of L2 having stared extinction in the face, sold senior players, forced to put out kids and had the better ones nicked by richer clubs and couldn't buy a win.
As a Wanderers fan I was just delighted that we avoided extinction thanks to a last minute intervention from Sharon Brittan's "consortium" which included Pink Floyd's drummer. I had zero hope of ever being where we are now - and TBH I wouldn't have bothered too much if we'd spent the next 10 years in L2.
At the time, I really couldn't understand why Evatt - or any successful manager would want to come to a basket case like us but Sharon sold him the "vision": - sustainable financial platform, community focus and progressive playing style. If they'd know about that video he sent to the female journo of him cracking one off whilst at Barrow he may well have not been given the gig.
But despite that he's earned a lot of credit with the fans and although he has a lot of detractors about his playing style and selections, they can't say too much whilst he continues to deliver. My personal whinge is that he tries to play like City/Barca with L1 standard players so it's brilliant when it comes off and disastrous when it doesn't.
He started off in a transfer embargo but still picked up some bargains from non-league and out-of-contract players. First real coup was our captain Santos from Barnet and that set a pattern of recruitment that has produced some cracking players for peanuts e.g. Eion Toal from Derry City for £75k (which was doubled recently as he got capped for NI)
His strengths have been:
A ruthless approach to sticking to the budget. In the summer we failed to land two excellent players because despite the clubs agreeing terms, the personal terms were too much so we didn't sign them.
A ruthless approach to team focus. He's had no problem in sacking off anyone with the "wrong attitude" - even our previous captain Sarcevic who led us to L2 promotion - and then slagged us off in the media for a lack of loyalty. **. Sold fans favourite Dapo Afolayan because "he didn't fit with the style of play" and the money on offer was good. Zero sentimentality involved.
A strong - and ruthless - approach to youth development. Sacked off the Academy, replaced it with a B team of youngsters and has already brought through Thomason (future captain IMO) and a couple of others close to a breakthrough.
An entertaining (and worrying
) style of possession-based attacking play.
Strong media presence - which winds up a few with his cliche'd defence of the team but has helped with community engagement and increased ST sales.
Overall he's developing into a strong leader despite coming across initially as a gambling, womanising arsehole - he seems to have outgrown that now and is starting to show some gravitas.
There are of course fans who want him gone, but I'm not one of them - he has too much credit in the bank having got us promotion from L2 and given us a superb day out at Wembley last season. I'm not sure how we could ever afford the quality of player needed to achieve the vision playing Evatt's way - and he is very dogmatic about playing that way regardless of how it goes - but the journey so far has been highly entertaining.