Steve Evans promises to fix Bristol Rovers’ woes in January transfer window

Bristol Rovers manager Steve Evans promised to use the January transfer window to fix his relegation-threatened club woes as a “terrible” year ended on a low with 2-0 home defeat to Barnet.

Evans’ relegation worries deepened as Barnet edged ahead after 45 minutes thanks to Adam Senior’s close-range finish.

Gas goalkeeper Luke Southwood saved Mark Shelton’s penalty, but Ryan Glover doubled the lead in the 86th minute when he thumped home a loose ball.

Evans revealed club owner Hussain AlSaeed had promised to make funds available to strengthen his squad after a seventh consecutive home defeat left the Gas hovering just one point above the foot of the Sky Bet League Two table.

“I know that 2025 has been a terrible year for every Gas fan, but 2026 will be a lot better and we’ll win football matches going forward,” Evans said.

“I’ve had a very positive meeting today with the owner and our director of football Ricky Martin.

“The owner is no different to any of us, he’s spent his money and he’ll be more disappointed than anyone else in the world.

“We’re not getting value for money so we’ve got to make sure that we get that in the January window.

“And the owner has made more funds available to myself and Ricky to go to the market.

“So we’ve been phoning and meeting players and talking to agents non-stop since I’ve come in so we will fix this in January window for sure.”

Evans, who succeeded the sacked Darrell Clarke earlier this month with the club looking for a first league win since September, continued: “Our mistakes are fixable, but it will be what we do in the January window that will be key.

“The players are giving everything they’ve got, absolutely, and they’ll be tired boys when they wake up in the morning so I can’t go in the dressing room and fault effort.

“But I can see one or two players hiding a little bit when you need them to be brave and strong.

“It’s unacceptable that we’ve lost seven home league games in a row, but to do nothing about it would be unforgivable.

Barnet manager Dean Brennan saluted his players.

“We’ve got a lot of athleticism within the group. I told everyone to put a shift in for the team, put a shift in for the badge,” he said.

“They came at us from the start and I guess that’s something you’d expect from a side that were desperate for a positive result.

“We came here and did the job we wanted to do. We had to change systems several times and they did the same, but we just countered that.

“I just thought we played on the front foot and asked a lot of questions to them defensively. We were a stronger team.”