Youngsters comprehensively beaten by their Wearside counterparts
An inexperienced Wanderers U18 side suffered a 7-0 reverse away at Sunderland last weekend.
Entering the clash on the back of a hard earned point against Stoke City the previous weekend, the club’s young guns took to the field full of confidence as they went in search of their first victory of the season.
Boasting seven players from the academy’s Under 16 set-up in the match day squad, the Whites' optimism was dampened almost immediately as they conceded a penalty kick just five minutes after kick off which Martin Smith duly converted.
Having found themselves behind, the team proceeded to concede another four goals inside the opening 45 minutes with Lynden Gooch, Tom Beadling, Rees Greenwood and Andrew Nelson getting their names on the score sheet to ensure that the hosts went into the break with a seemingly unassailable 5-0 lead.
Despite a more determined performance by Bolton in front of goal in the second half, the Black Cats went onto add another two strikes to their tally through Gooch and Smith to run out handsome winners.
Speaking following the final whistle, coach David Lee admitted his disappointment at the scoreline of the game but was adamant that it is ultimately a result that will stand his youngsters in good stead for the rest of the season.
"It wasn't a great result on paper, but we came up against a very experienced Sunderland side who we just couldn't deal with.
"We had a lot of younger players involved today including William Jaaskelainen and Alex Honeyball who featured against Stoke last weekend - although this will be a tough result to take for them, they need to look at it as a great learning curve in the long run.
"We didn't help ourselves by conceding the penalty so early on, and then it was a number of individual mistakes which cost us dearly.
"The players weren't clinical enough in front of goal either - with the few opportunities that we had, we failed to test their goalkeeper which is frustrating."
He added: "We're disappointed, but we can't dwell on this game. We've had some great performances this season which haven't got the results that they've deserved, so we just need to pick ourselves up and prepare ourselves for our game against Wolves next week."
Bolton: Jaaskelainen, Greenaugh, Honeyball, Kennedy (Henry), Ball, Bailey, Newby, Griffiths, Hinchliffe, Torres, Thomas (Nelson)