Huddersfield Town midfielder on why his experiences at Bristol Rovers provide an invaluable promotion lesson

The Huddersfield Town midfielder is part of a Terriers side whose opening to 2024-25 has been a bit of a curate’s egg in truth. Good in parts and less so in others.

Town flew out of the traps in August and recorded the club’s best league start to a campaign since the late Seventies.

That was followed by a miserable end to the summer and start to the autumn, which saw Town lose seven times in eight matches in all competitions.

Their sole success came in a 4-0 Roses triumph at Bolton, when Evans netted his second goal of the season.

Respite has arrived in October by virtue of three successive home wins in league and trophy ahead of Tuesday evening’s tough trip to Wrexham.

Ups and downs have arrived in equal measure and there’s a fair chance they might continue to do so, with Town forced to cope with plenty of disruption already this season with a number of players having been sidelined at junctures due to injury.

For the West Yorkshire outfit, it could well be a season which revolves around staying in the game in opening half of 24-25 before hopefully hitting their straps when it matters in the spring.

That transpired in a memorable finish to 2021-22 when Evans was in the colours of former club Bristol Rovers.

The West Country side lost just twice in their last 19 league matches that season - winning 13 - and dramatically pipped Northampton Town to automatic promotion from League Two on the final day following an incredible 7-0 victory over Scunthorpe United.

It provided ample proof that strange - and magical things - can happen and underlined the fact that the season is a long game.

Evans, who came off the bench in the win against Rovers on Saturday, said: "There is a lot of football to be played.

"Referencing back to the time at Bristol, at Christmas I think we were about 16th or 17th and we ended up getting promoted.

"Anything can happen in football and I think there’s an element of momentum.

"Once we get on that winning run, you have got to ride it for as long as you can."

Coping with pressure certainly shouldn’t be a problem for Evans, who showed he had a bit about him by leaving English football to join German outfit Paderborn earlier in his career - something that not too many young professionals would have done.

He added: "It was a strange one. I had about six months left on my contract at Everton and at my age, I was thinking why would I not go over to the Bundesliga and try as many games as I could.

"It was interesting and a good learning and life experience. I was obviously young going over there and playing a lot of under-21s football and you are going into arguably one of the bigger leagues in the world.

"It’s about getting the results and that’s when I learnt a lot about the (importance) of results."