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Josh Sheehan expects fierce competition on the training ground at Wanderers over the next seven days as players jostle for a place in Ian Evatt’s Wembley line-up.
The Whites will play in a behind-closed-doors friendly this morning to allow players like MJ Williams, George Johnston and George Thomason a chance to prove their full fitness ahead of the Papa Johns Trophy final against Plymouth Argyle on April 2.
While Dan Nlundulu, Shola Shoretire and Victor Adeboyejo are cup tied and the club is yet to confirm whether Lloyd Isgrove will miss the game through injury, Evatt should have at least 19 senior players from which to select, provided his international contingent avoid injury over the next few days.
Sheehan – who did his chances of inclusion no harm with a fine performance in midfield against Sheffield Wednesday last Friday – expects standards to be sky high at Lostock as players look to catch the manager’s eye.
“We’ll all be training to get in the squad, let alone the team,” he told The Bolton News. “That’s how strong the group is at the moment.
“There are three or four players who are back from injury now and raring to go, so it will be a hard stretch of training now, with a practice game as well. We will have to work hard just to get a chance to play against Plymouth.
“We’ll be working hard. We don’t want to leave Wembley as losers because nobody remembers them.”
Opponents Plymouth will have Saxon Earley and Tyreik Wright cup tied and appear to have lost the services of centre-back James Bolton to a hamstring injury.
The defender was substituted in the first half of the Pilgrims’ 2-0 win at Accrington Stanley on Tuesday night and is likely to be replaced by Dan Scarr in Steven Schumacher’s side.
At Sheffield Wednesday, Sheehan completed his first 90 minutes in League One since December and is now hitting a run of form, having waited patiently to build up after a long-term knee injury.
“I’ve been saying it for a couple of weeks but it really does take time to get back after one of those injuries, it’s just a natural thing,” he said.
“You have to play games and when you’ve played games it just clicks.
“I felt good out there, I have for the last few weeks. Now I have to keep building to get even better than I was before.”
Sheehan was pleased to end a spell of disappointing team performances with a positive point at Hillsborough, feeling the Whites regained some of the confidence that had been lost in recent weeks.
“I think the way we played showed the character of the team,” he said. “It can be a loud place but we quietened it down because we were the team with the ball, and you could see from the way the game was going that their fans were getting a bit agitated. That is what we want, what we play for, and I feel like we took the sting out of the game.
“We had come away from being brave on the ball over the last couple of weeks. We hadn’t played the way we wanted, ground out results, and that is just not us. We are a good team on the ball, and we’re good out of possession too.
“We were much calmer in possession and the gaffer said after the game that it was much more like his team. It felt like the old Bolton again.
“After 15-20 minutes there was only one team playing the better football.”
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