A VEXED Phil Parkinson offered up a warning to Wanderers after watching them take a backward step against Derby County on Saturday.

The Whites boss accused his side of failing to learn a lesson from the opening day home defeat against Leeds, as they again shipped early goals, leaving themselves with too much to do.

Now second bottom in the Championship after four games, Parkinson’s side face another of the division’s heavyweights in Sheffield Wednesday tomorrow night, albeit in the Carabao Cup.

He hopes the message hammered home post-match in the dressing room this weekend will sink in quickly with the squad.

“We have got to learn quickly,” he told The Bolton News. “If you’d watched the Leeds game you’d maybe say we haven’t learned a thing.

“You can come away from the game and say Derby have good players, their movement is good, etc, etc, but we could have done better to stay right in the game. We needed to give ourselves a better chance, not leave ourselves two goals down in the first quarter of the game.

“In every dressing room around the country, whatever level, players get told ‘stay in the game’ and get a foothold. But in the two home games we’ve had so far we haven’t done that. It’s hugely frustrating.”

Parkinson admitted Wanderers lacked the guile to break Derby down once David Nugent had put them two up inside 21 minutes.

And the manager believes better decisions need to be made on the pitch if his side are to compete against the better Championship sides.

“In the last home game we went direct too much into Gary Madine. In this game we hardly hit him at all,” he said. “If teams are locking on in midfield then the ball has to go into the front player. We did that better late in the game.

“You have to play the right ball at the right time. Too many times we went short into midfield and then back again, which is frustrating.

“If it has to go long to Gary, hit it long. If it has to go down the side for Adam Le Fondre, do it. But the selection wasn’t right.”