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Ricardo Santos knows he has a big job on his hands lifting a tired squad still smarting from defeat at Portsmouth.
Saturday’s opponents Morecambe will offer little sympathy to Ian Evatt’s side, who negotiated eight games in league and cup last month.
The Whites showed serious signs of fatigue at Fratton Park in midweek but club captain Santos is willing to shoulder the responsibility of lifting the mood.
“That’s my job now,” he told The Bolton News. “To pick the boys up, reflect on where we can do better, and make sure we move on. That’s the captain’s role.”
According to data from The Analyst, Wanderers had conceded eight goals from set pieces all season before the game at Portsmouth, which gave them the joint-fifth best record in the division.
To ship three in the same game came as quite a surprise but Santos is confident there will not be a repeat at Morecambe this weekend in the type of arena where Bolton have struggled in the past.
“I think we have learned to cope in that type of game,” he said. “It is mad to say, because we have just conceded three set pieces, but we don’t do that often. It is one area we are good at.
“But I think we will go to Morecambe and learn from what went wrong. We will improve because that’s what good teams do.
“We can do that. Personally I think we are doing well but set pieces can punish you in this league and we switched off three times. That can’t happen.”
Santos was controversially sent off in Bolton’s last visit to Morecambe – an ugly, stormy encounter in more ways than one, which saw Amadou Bakayoko grab an equaliser deep into stoppage time.
Pride may have been dented by defeat at Fratton Park but the Bolton skipper is sure there will be no lasting damage done.
“It is another tough place to go,” he said of the game at the Mazuma Stadium. “Every game this season seems to be a tough one but we have to go to Morecambe and put things right, get the three points.
“You have to find level ground. When you are winning games every week you shouldn’t let yourself get carried away and too high either.
“We need to go there at the weekend with no pressure and play the way we have been doing most of the season, do what it takes to get three points.”
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