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Gethin Jones takes no pride in Wanderers’ recent FA Cup barren streak.
Now in his fourth season as a Bolton player, the defender has yet to get past the first round of the competition, suffering defeats against Crewe Alexandra, Stockport County and Barnsley.
While pursuing promotion to the Championship remains the priority – a chase that will be resumed on Tuesday night with a trip to Shrewsbury Town – the run of poor cup was one of the first topics of discussion after victory at Charlton last weekend.
“As soon as we came off the pitch one of the first things the gaffer said when he came into the changing room was not to get carried away, there’s a big FA Cup game coming up,” Jones told The Bolton News ahead of Solihull Moors’ visit on Saturday.
“I don’t think we have got out of the first round since I have been here. And obviously that is not good enough.
“We know they will be coming to try and cause an upset, but we have won three league games in a row now, we are playing some good football, so we are confident we can get a win and get into the second round. It’s overdue.”
Some may feel cup football should be side-lined so that all focus can be placed on League One but the message within the Wanderers camp this week has been geared towards maintaining momentum, thus aiding their cause at Shrewsbury a few days later.
Jones feels the team has rediscovered itself at a good time, heading into some key games through November and early December.
“We know our objective,” he said. “We know where we want to be come the end of the season.
“We say all the time that this group has a tight bond, and I think it is the best I have been involved in here. The lads all work hard whether it is the league, the cup, we just want to get results and win games.
“Maybe before the international break we came away from some of the stuff that we are good at. Playing out from the back, we maybe needed to be more confident, put more trust in players even if they have a man on them.
“It is something we have done well in the past few games and it has shown in the results we have got recently.
“It is such an unbelievable squad. You know whenever you get on that pitch that you have to put a performance in to keep the shirt.
“I know people maybe get frustrated when they are watching at times, and people might even talk about what we have done in the second half of games, but the way we play sometimes blows teams away and we are working on doing that over a longer period of time now.”
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