STEVEN Schumacher reflected on a crazy game against Crawley and said: “We told you it was going to be exciting!”
Taking charge of his first game at the Toughsheet, the Wanderers head coach watched his side go 3-1 behind before storming back to win 4-3 with a 99th minute deflected effort from Gethin Jones.
Asked to sum up the result – which also took Bolton level on points with sixth-placed Charlton Athletic – Schumacher admitted his side could have made it easier on their fans.
“As long as we win, that’s the important thing, but we told you it was going to be exciting,” he said. “We were trying to figure out a way to change the rhythm of the game.
“I thought we were playing really well. Some of the chances we created, the areas we got into, they were fine. But we were a little bit susceptible to counter-attacks when we were throwing so many bodies forward.
“The first goal was going to be important and they got it, so we had to do something about it.
“At 3-2 we had the four subs ready to come on and me Richie (Kyle) ad Mark (Hughes) spoke about it and said: ‘Let’s just do it anyway.’ We wanted to stick to the idea and get a bit of freshness on to the pitch, make it stretched, and thankfully it worked.”
Crawley’s timewasting was a feature of the whole game but it came back to hurt them late on when an extra 12 minutes were added on by the fourth official.
“I think that might be a first for me,” Schumacher said. “I think that was kind of how the game went, even in the first half. There were lads going down holding their heads for head injuries, that probably wasn't necessary, but that happens.
“I'm just glad that the fourth official had a good track of it and he kept telling me all of the time in the second half that there was going to be plenty left.
“Again, that came into our plan and when we put Jay Matete on. I said to the lads, we've probably still got 15 minutes to go here, so let's just make sure we get the right substitution and we put Adam Morley back in as the third centre-back and got Jay, who obviously runs forward a bit more.
“Gethin Jones was encouraged to run forward, so thankfully today some of the decisions we made paid off, but yeah, it was a crazy game.”
After a goalless first half, Wanderers struggled to contain Crawley on the counter-attack at the start of the second half. But Schumacher was pleased with the way they wrestled back control of the game.
“It was non-stop, that’s for sure,” he added. “Spirit and character is just a given.
“The lads have got to put in that effort and put in that work-rate because the fans will really see that and appreciate it and get behind it.
“The performance wasn't perfect today and we definitely could have done things differently and been more aggressive and tighter and harder to score against. I thought Crawley's goals were really good though, by the way, we were a fair play to them and we said in the week that they've got some good attacking players.
“They punished us on their moments, but in general, some of our attacking players were excellent as well and we got into loads of good areas and there were some really outstanding performances.”
