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Wanderers could yet gamble on the fitness of Ricardo Santos and Eoin Toal to try and keep their play-off hopes on track.
Ian Evatt faces a difficult choice over the coming fortnight on whether to patch up two of his key defenders and send them into action ahead of schedule.
Santos is currently side-lined with a thigh injury and not set to return until the end of the month, while Toal’s season looked to be over thanks to a horrific challenge from Plymouth Argyle’s Sam Cosgrove in the Papa Johns Trophy at Wembley which damaged the Northern Irishman’s ankle.
Evatt conceded that the absence of both players has meant making some tactical concessions, and though his team picked up four points from their two games over the Easter weekend, they are now clinging on to sixth spot by goal difference from Derby County, albeit with one game in hand.
As such, the Bolton boss is weighing up the prospect of rushing one or both back before they are fully ready.
“There is going to come a point where we may have to roll the dice,” he said.
“At the moment they are not ready but perhaps in a week or so, depending on how the results have gone, we will do that. But the problem with rolling the dice is that you run the risk of losing them for the entirety of the season, and the play-offs if we make it.
“For the moment we are just going to have to carry on with what we have got, strive for improvement, keep working really hard.”
Wanderers dropped points late on against Cambridge United on Monday, failing to stop Sam Smith heading home a late equaliser from Jack Lankester’s free kick.
Evatt was unhappy with several aspects of his side’s defending, which ultimately cost two points in stoppage time.
“It is poor from the throw-in, really,” he said. “We didn’t go aggressively enough to stop the cross or to stop him playing inside, then Aaron (Morley) tries to nick it, which he shouldn’t. Luke, as he gets more fatigued, starts to make rash decisions, and that was a rash decision.
“Although the lad was going into the box, he was kind of moving away from goal and we had bodies back, so we didn’t need to concede the free kick.
“The most disappointing thing was that we did not defend the free kick well enough, we just allowed too many spaces and gaps and were not aggressive enough to go and head it.
“At that stage of the game you have to keep it out of the net at all costs. It was a game that was won, we just didn’t see it out.”
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