Fleetwood Town boss praises two-goal striker following Carabao Cup success

Fleetwood Town saw off Wigan Athletic on Saturday Picture: Stephen Buckley/PRiME Media Images

The striker came off the bench to score twice as the Cod Army overturned a two-goal deficit to beat Wigan Athletic 3-2 at Highbury.

Evans pulled a goal back, and after Josh Morris’ second-half leveller, netted the winner 13 minutes from time.

Barton said: “I am delighted for Ched. He’s working his way back to full fitness – I don’t think he has actually done a full pre-season for a long period of time.

“I thought he was a tad unfortunate not to score more goals as he was fantastic. He led the line superbly.

“As a group we pride ourselves on the fact that we put team over self.

“We have got a lot of individuals who are all capable of really, really good performances, but when they gel together in a cohesive team unit, I think that is when clubs like us can start to punch above our weight and start to really surprise a few teams.

“I said to the boys at half-time that the Wigan lads, and I mean no disrespect to them, started to look short of fitness although they started well and caused us problems.”

Another positive was the second-half performance of Mark Duffy, who came off the bench 24 hours after joining the club, having been released by Sheffield United.

Barton enthused: “He showed glimpses of quality and we are delighted to have him in the side now and work him back towards the top level performances we know he is capable of.

“The Cod Army fans will be delighted to see him here at Highbury and obviously he can get those relationships formulated again that he had with Paul Coutts and Ched Evans from their Sheffield United days.”

However, Barton confirmed keeper Joel Coleman could be out for ‘weeks or months’.

Another recent arrival, Coleman went down in agony after taking a goal-kick during the second half, seeing him replaced by Alex Cairns.

He also admitted the club is ‘down the line’ when it comes to further arrivals but is already happy with the squad at his disposal.

Barton said: “It might be a case of harum-scarum until the transfer window closes, but everyone we have at the club is a good player – they would not be here if they weren’t.”