IAN Evatt won’t allow any backslapping at Wanderers after their return to winning ways in November.

Despite five successive victories, which puts the Bolton boss in prime position for League Two’s manager of the month award, Evatt has underlined to his squad that they are yet to hit their full potential.

Port Vale come to the University of Bolton Stadium on Saturday on the back of five consecutive league defeats – but still have one of the division’s most impressive away records, having beaten Southend, Oldham, Exeter and Scunthorpe on their travels.

Wanderers will already have to accommodate for the loss of Andrew Tutte, who has now officially been ruled out for up to a month with a thigh injury, and Evatt is keen to reinforce the message among his players that they cannot allow standards to drop.

“As a person, I’m never happy, my missus will tell you that!” he said. “I moan about everything, and I strive for perfection but it’s not something that I can believe you can achieve.

“You can always improve no matter how good you are and there’s lots of things to improve and work on. We know we can be better and we will be better. This team will progress throughout the season, I’ve said that a lot. There’s a long way to go.”

Evatt believes that keeping a level head will be important if Wanderers are to achieve their goal of competing for promotion – something which looked highly unlikely just a few short weeks ago.

“It’s enjoyable at the moment but also we have to manage expectations,” he said. “We don’t want to get too high like we didn’t get too low when we were losing.

“We have to keep ourselves on the straight and narrow, know that we have to keep working hard on the training pitch, that’s everybody, not just the starting 11, but the ones out of the team which are vital to us as I’ve said.

“They can drive standards and make sure the ones in the 11 know they have to perform, because if they don’t, they’re willing and ready to take their shirts.

“It’s competitive at the minute, it’s great, we’re on a good run but it’s only November still. There’s a long way to go, we have to keep working hard and keep striving for improvement.”

The promotion mantra was repeated at every level of the club during the summer and Evatt concedes that the bravado did contribute to intensifying the disappointment felt among fans during the poor run at the start of the season.

“That’s probably my fault,” he said, “because when we’re playing lower league teams in pre-season and we’re beating them easily, it raises expectation and when you see Bolton Wanderers in League Two, everyone automatically thinks they should win every game.

“It’s not that easy and I built up our expectation because I’ve said many times as a mental message, unless you believe you can be the best and are the best, then you’re not going to be the best, so that kind of thing hurt us. Slowly but surely we’re getting there and now we’ve been through a bit of pain, we’ve been through some adversity.

“It’s remarkably similar to the Barrow season last season where we got off to an awful start, had I think seven points after nine games and then went on a big winning run and a long time unbeaten.

“All of a sudden we found ourselves at the top end of the division. I’m hoping it’s the same thing this season, but there’s a long, long way to go.”