IAN Evatt admits time is running out to save Wanderers’ season of self-sabotage.

The Bolton boss is under significant pressure to find some consistency in results and performances to get his side back into the top six shake-up.

Though the club’s board issued their support to their long-serving manager in a statement before Christmas, his relationship with the fanbase hit an all-time low with defeat at home to Barnsley on Boxing Day.

Evatt says he is not “naïve”, and that his own position will be in jeopardy unless a solution to the can be found to his team’s worryingly changeable fortunes.

After surrendering a half-time lead against the Tykes on Thursday, Bolton dropped to 10th spot with a negative goal difference, 16 points off Wycombe in the top two and just 12 clear of Crawley Town in the bottom four. They still have games in hand on many of the teams around them in the table, including Sunday’s opponents Lincoln City, but the margin for error is becoming increasingly smaller.

“We can’t stay on this cycle, it has to change, it is not good for anybody,” Evatt conceded.

“It is not good for me, not for the players, not good for the fans. We need change, we need to be better, and that needs to happen quickly.

“But that’s where we are at, we have to deal with what is in front of us and at the moment that is Lincoln. We need to respond, again.”

Klaidi Lolos’s goal gave Bolton a half-time lead for only the second time in a league game this season at home, but all three points eventually slipped through their fingers.

Lincoln’s form over the last six games is a shade worse than that of Wanderers – but Evatt accepts the pressure on his side is weighing heavy on his players’ shoulders.

“Everyone seems to come here and raise their game,” he said, asked if opposition managers will be playing on the nervousness shown against Barnsley. “Everyone knows that.

“Barnsley were Barnsley, the game didn’t look anything different to what we thought it would look like. They are the same team we have seen for the last two or three years.

“Second half we were not ourselves, first half we were. Second half we were miles away from it We must do more, and we must do it better.”

Evatt has made plans for next month’s transfer window with the first movement expected to be a recall for midfielder Aaron Morley from Wycombe.

January recruits have proven the manager’s salvation before but he remains adamant that the squad he has assembled can produce more.

“Obviously it (January) gives us an opportunity to make the team better but we shouldn’t count or gamble on that,” he said. “Once we get everyone back fit, strong and available the team should be strong enough to compete in the top six of this league and that is where we need to be and should be, pushing towards those top two spots. But at the moment we’re nowhere near that.

“We have to take ownership of that, as a collective we take responsibility, and make sure it changes quickly.

“We know – I am not naïve – but it needs to change quickly.”