Wanderers saw their two-and-a-half month unbeaten run at Macron Stadium come to an end as they suffered a disappointing 1-0 defeat against relegation-rivals Burton Albion on Saturday.
David Wheater had the Whites' best chance as he saw his header bounce down onto the line off the crossbar, but Bolton rarely threatened visiting goalkeeper Steven Bywater as Lloyd Dyer's strike sealed the points for the Brewers.
Speaking to bwfc.co.uk following the final whistle, manager Phil Parkinson covered the following points...
On what went wrong…
It’s hugely disappointing, we started the game brightly. We’ve conceded the goal and, as Burton have shown last year and this year, they sit back and soak up pressure on their travels. We needed a bit more quality to get back in the game. The attempt they’ve scored with, we’ve had four or five similar situations where we haven’t made the goalkeeper work or it’s straight at him. We needed to show more quality in those situations. It’s a hugely disappointing afternoon for us and we need to make sure we dust ourselves down and come back strongly from this defeat.
On missed opportunities…
If we’d got the first goal or got back into the game, you’d have fancied us to go on and win it but we couldn’t find that moment of quality. It wasn’t through a lack of effort. We went a bit flat after the goal but no-one hid away from the ball in the second half. We gave it away cheaply at times but the lads kept going. We made the changes from the bench to add some freshness to the team but it wasn’t to be.
On the relegation fight…
It’s always going to be tight with the way the results have gone today. We just need to make sure that come January, we have picked up enough points to stay in contention. We’ve played well at home recently and picked up some great results. Today is a setback but it is not going to completely define the season.
On next week’s game against Cardiff City…
We’ll return to training on Monday morning and need to make sure we have a good week. We need to be better and get better in certain areas, certainly in that final third. We face the team who are second in the league but we have shown in the past at home that we can compete with anyone. Today is a setback but it does not mean we can’t go into the Cardiff game not thinking we can get a result.
On the upcoming festive period…
One result can change it. Not many months ago, people had written us off completely. It was who would get relegated alongside us but now we’ve given ourselves a fighting chance. We’ve got to make sure that the whole squad is ready for this festive period because everyone will be needed. We will need to change the team around as we go along. We now need to get back on it in training and get ready for an important game next week.