DARREN Pratley hopes new arrival Ben Amos can replicate the impact he had at Wanderers whilst on loan from Manchester United last season.

Although confined to the sidelines with a torn hamstring injury in the new year, the Whites midfielder was impressed with what he saw of Amos when he stepped in for the injured Andy Lonergan in February.

With Adam Bogdan and Lonergan now gone, Amos is out alone as number one after signing a four-year contract with the club at the start of the month. And Pratley is looking forward to seeing what the 24-year-old stopper can do again, given a fresh start at Bolton.

“I didn’t play with him while I was out injured but I saw some of the games and he’d settled quite nicely. He’s obviously got a good pedigree after playing at United.

“I was sad to see Adam Bogdan and Andy Lonergan go. Bogdan was here when I came in and Lonners, whenever he played I thought he did well. I was a bit shocked when he got told he could go.

“But hopefully Ben can grab hold of the shirt now, or Ross Fitzsimons, or whoever else might come in, and hit top form.”

Bogdan and Lonergan were not the only well-known names to depart the Macron Stadium this summer, with Jermaine Beckford, Matt Mills, Craig Davies, Sanmi Odelusi and Alex Baptiste also shipped on.

As such, Pratley is now the third longest-serving senior player on the books having arrived in 2011, behind Mark Davies and David Wheater.

The midfielder is keeping his fingers crossed there are more new arrivals in the coming weeks as Neil Lennon continues his rebuilding effort, with a view to improving on last season’s struggles.

“It’s a completely different place to when I came here but that’s football,” Pratley told The Bolton News. “You know if you drop down the leagues you are going to lose players.

“People move on and we’ll just see what happens this year.

“To be fair, this is quite an easy club to come in for a new player because there are no cliques, everyone gets on.

“But obviously we do need more players. We finished 18th last season and lost a lot of those guys – I don’t know of many teams who’ve gone from that position to top six without signing quality.

“The manager will need a bit of backing to bring some new players in and freshen things up, and hopefully that can happen.”