MARK Beevers says Wanderers can shrug off their Cardiff disappointment and get straight back down to the relegation fight.

After Tuesday night’s defeat in South Wales Phil Parkinson’s men hit the road once more on Saturday, this time against a QPR side placed just a few places above them in the Championship table.

The Whites could get dragged back into the bottom three if they fail to get anything at Loftus Road and host struggling Sunderland just a few days later. But Beevers is confident an experienced dressing room can handle the pressures of a survival scrap.

“You’d like to win the next 10 games and guarantee safety well before the end of the season but we all know, realistically, it doesn’t work like that,” he told The Bolton News.

“There will be ups and downs. We won’t get things all our own way, so it’s about how you handle it.

“For me it’s about digging in. It might mean putting in those gritty performances where we have to protect the goal at all costs, but I think that’s what we are about. We did it in League One and I think we’ve shown we can do it in the Championship.

“We have beaten some top teams in the last few weeks and it shows we can get results against anyone, really. If you stumble, you get back up quickly.”

Wanderers will be racking up the miles – following trips to Cardiff and QPR with another long-distance haul to Norwich next weekend.

But Beevers won’t be using the long road trips as an excuse.

“We’re footballers and we should be able to play Saturday-Tuesday every week,” he said.

“The road trips go alongside it. The club do everything to make sure we’re fighting fit – so I can’t complain.”

While there are plenty of senior heads in the Wanderers camp, the introduction of a youngster – albeit one well-known to Bolton fans – has given Beevers plenty of encouragement.

Zach Clough is yet to score his first goal since returning on loan from Nottingham Forest but the striker’s enthusiasm has been infectious, says the centre-half.

“Cloughy is a great lad and you can see whether he’s training or he’s out there on a match-day he’s working hard and he cares about what he’s doing,” he said.

“He wants to be on the score-sheet, he’s absolutely desperate for that goal.”