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Wanderers hope Victor Adeboyejo can shake-off a virus in time to feature in the squad against Lincoln City on Sunday.
The striker pulled out of the reckoning for the Boxing Day defeat against Barnsley and Ian Evatt was unable to offer any guarantees that he would be fit again to face the Imps.
Eoin Toal could feature after returning to full training. The Northern Ireland international was left out of the squad on Thursday and has not featured for the Whites since the win at Stevenage in late October.
Josh Sheehan, Chris Forino and Kyle Dempsey are also edging towards fitness, although none are expected to play a part in the final game of 2024.
Carlos Mendes Gomes played his first minutes since February with a second-half cameo against Barnsley, with Scott Arfield also starting only his third league game of the season – and checks will be run on both players before the weekend.
Evatt said after the game: “Scott obviously it’s his first minutes for a long time so he got very tired. Barnsley are a team that work you, physically, and Carlos being back in is really good. He needs time, minutes to recover to get back to where he was before the injury but that is a step forward for him.
On Arfield, the Bolton Wanderers boss added: “He is an experienced player and since he came in has had a few niggly injuries, probably hasn’t played as much as he wanted to but in the first half because of the shortage of midfield players we needed to give him an opportunity to help the team and he did do that. No issues with Scotty at all, he got tired and that was down to a lack of minutes more than anything else.”
The difference in Wanderers’ performance levels in each half of Thursday’s game were visible to all inside the stadium, and Evatt was at a loss to explain the slump.
“I can’t,” he said. “We go in at half time and are comfortable with where we were at in the game. Obviously Aaron (Collins)’s miss was a big moment and I know we went 1-0 up after that but if that’s 2-0 it’s different, people are more comfortable and don’t carry the same nerves.
“Second half we just let them build momentum and didn’t recover. Our game management and game decisions, leadership on the pitch – and I’m not talking about the captain, because he does lead – but I’m talking about everybody taking ownership of the leadership piece. We didn’t do it enough, as a team, and we didn’t manage the game at all well, in the end got punished for it.
“That has been our way, you go back to last season in the big games and we missed some critical chances. Again, key moments and this is a moments league, I keep saying it, the league is tight and you watch other games – Birmingham, for instance, win 1-0 at Crawley and take a big chance. We have to do the same.
“You are not going to blow teams away, it’s not that easy, but you are going to get moments and chances so when they come along you need to take them.”
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