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Manager Phil Parkinson spoke to the club’s website following his side’s 4-2 AET defeat at the hands of Blackpool as they were knocked out of the EFL Cup at the first round.
Jamie Proctor has headed Wanderers in front on the stroke of half-time, only for Blackpool to fight back to take the lead with two goals in quick succession from Kelvin Mellor and Brad Potts.
Kaiyne Woolery forced extra-time with a stoppage-time equaliser, only for late efforts from Jim McAlister and John Herron to seal Bolton's fate.
Reflecting on his side's cup exit, Parkinson covered the following points when assessing the game after the final whistle...
On Wanderers' travelling supporters…
The fans were great. It was fantastic support, which makes it more disappointing as it would have been tremendous to send them home in the second round. But it wasn’t to be.
There was a lot of good stuff tonight and I think the fans have seen that. We enjoyed the win together, we’ve now got to take this defeat together.
On his side's missed chances…
We're disappointed but there was a lot of good stuff out there tonight. There was a lot of effort and a lot of commitment. We played some good football.
We switched the play terrifically well and got in some fantastic crossing positions.
But when you have that much possession you’ve got to make it count, and we were unable to do that. That affected us a little bit and we got a bit complacent with our defending.
We had a period in the second half when we really pinned Blackpool in. We had to kill them off and had chances to do that, but were unable to get that decisive second goal.
Then we’ve switched off for a five-minute period and that is the only spell in that second half when Blackpool really threatened.
When you don’t score, you’ve got to stay strong and resolute as a team and make sure you win the game. In that period when we let crosses came in too easily was very costly.
The play around the box was exciting but at times we tried to score the perfect goal. We’ve got to pull the trigger quicker and we’ve got to get a better ratio of shots hitting the target, but we’ll get there.
On exiting the competition after extra-time…
We got back in the game through a very well-taken goal by Kaiyne. It was even stevens up to the break in extra-time before they got the decisive breaks in the second period with the first goal.
The second one I can forgive because we had thrown everyone forward and got caught on the counter-attack, which sometimes happens.
On Jamie Proctor's performance…
Proccy had missed quite a bit because of a groin problem that he had at the back-end of last year, which flared up again.
He’d only trained a little bit prior to the weekend, but we wanted to give him 60 minutes and I thought he got better as the game went on.
He was really good in the first 15 minutes of the second half when he was on, and I’m pleased he got his goal.
On squad rotation…
The way we controlled the game with the ball at times was excellent. We made a lot of changes and we looked dangerous as a team.
Some players have got some key minutes in their legs. Proctor, Davies and Trotter all made good contributions.
And finally, on needing to respond against AFC Wimbledon...
We look at what we did well and take that into the weekend, but also look at what we didn’t do well and improve on it. There are areas we can get better at we need to get back on the training ground and look to make improvements.
We don’t like getting beaten. As much as we were really pleased at the weekend to win, we’re going to be down but we’ve got to make sure we’re not too down.
We’ve got to pick ourselves up and go again and we look forward to the challenge that AFC Wimbledon will bring at the weekend.
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Jamie Proctor has headed Wanderers in front on the stroke of half-time, only for Blackpool to fight back to take the lead with two goals in quick succession from Kelvin Mellor and Brad Potts.
Kaiyne Woolery forced extra-time with a stoppage-time equaliser, only for late efforts from Jim McAlister and John Herron to seal Bolton's fate.
Reflecting on his side's cup exit, Parkinson covered the following points when assessing the game after the final whistle...
On Wanderers' travelling supporters…
The fans were great. It was fantastic support, which makes it more disappointing as it would have been tremendous to send them home in the second round. But it wasn’t to be.
There was a lot of good stuff tonight and I think the fans have seen that. We enjoyed the win together, we’ve now got to take this defeat together.
On his side's missed chances…
We're disappointed but there was a lot of good stuff out there tonight. There was a lot of effort and a lot of commitment. We played some good football.
We switched the play terrifically well and got in some fantastic crossing positions.
But when you have that much possession you’ve got to make it count, and we were unable to do that. That affected us a little bit and we got a bit complacent with our defending.
We had a period in the second half when we really pinned Blackpool in. We had to kill them off and had chances to do that, but were unable to get that decisive second goal.
Then we’ve switched off for a five-minute period and that is the only spell in that second half when Blackpool really threatened.
When you don’t score, you’ve got to stay strong and resolute as a team and make sure you win the game. In that period when we let crosses came in too easily was very costly.
The play around the box was exciting but at times we tried to score the perfect goal. We’ve got to pull the trigger quicker and we’ve got to get a better ratio of shots hitting the target, but we’ll get there.
On exiting the competition after extra-time…
We got back in the game through a very well-taken goal by Kaiyne. It was even stevens up to the break in extra-time before they got the decisive breaks in the second period with the first goal.
The second one I can forgive because we had thrown everyone forward and got caught on the counter-attack, which sometimes happens.
On Jamie Proctor's performance…
Proccy had missed quite a bit because of a groin problem that he had at the back-end of last year, which flared up again.
He’d only trained a little bit prior to the weekend, but we wanted to give him 60 minutes and I thought he got better as the game went on.
He was really good in the first 15 minutes of the second half when he was on, and I’m pleased he got his goal.
On squad rotation…
The way we controlled the game with the ball at times was excellent. We made a lot of changes and we looked dangerous as a team.
Some players have got some key minutes in their legs. Proctor, Davies and Trotter all made good contributions.
And finally, on needing to respond against AFC Wimbledon...
We look at what we did well and take that into the weekend, but also look at what we didn’t do well and improve on it. There are areas we can get better at we need to get back on the training ground and look to make improvements.
We don’t like getting beaten. As much as we were really pleased at the weekend to win, we’re going to be down but we’ve got to make sure we’re not too down.
We’ve got to pick ourselves up and go again and we look forward to the challenge that AFC Wimbledon will bring at the weekend.
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