HIS Bolton career has yet to take off but Craig Noone says the best is yet to come from him.

Since his summer switch from Cardiff City, a move that ended a five-year stint with this weekend’s opponents, the wide man has been forced to play the waiting game, with just two league starts to his name.

Whites manager Phil Parkinson has already stated his intention to use his squad over the festive period, and as he prepares to welcome his former club, Noone insists when the call to arms does come he will not be caught cold.

“I don’t feel like the Bolton fans have seen fully what I’m capable of yet,” he told Wanderers’ matchday programme. “But I’m hungry to play games and show them why I was brought to the football club.

“It is hard too to break into a team that’s doing well and picking up results but, like a lot of the lads, I just have to be ready to step up when the call comes.

“I have no complaints about not playing though – all I want is the team to do well though and that’s the most important thing.

“The long-term stabilisation of this club is hugely important and as long as that happens, then nothing else matters.

“Everybody – across the management, backroom and playing staff – are very close-knit and we’re just determined to continue working hard together and kicking on this season.”

Noone cost Cardiff a seven-figure sum when he was signed from Brighton in August 2012. Fast forward a year and the Liverpudlian had bagged a Championship winner’s medal and was lining up for the Bluebirds against the Premier League’s richest and most famous names.

But after 170 appearances in his five years in South Wales incoming manager Neil Warnock made it clear he did not feature in his plans, despite his high standing with the Cardiff faithful, and so he signed a two-year deal at the Macron.

And before facing his former club, now second in the table, for the first time since his departure, Noone has been drawing parallels between the two sides.

“I’m definitely looking forward to Saturday’s game for obvious reasons,” he added. “I still keep in touch with a few of the lads there, but it will be the first time I will have played against them since I left the club so it’ll be a bit weird.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Cardiff City as I spent a long time at the club and they did a lot for me and my career.

“I had a lot of happy memories there – it’s a great city and a brilliant football club and what I’ve seen in the last couple of months at Bolton is exactly what I saw at Cardiff for all those years.

“The squad is strong and they’re surrounded by a really good support unit across the board which will always make the world of difference out there on the pitch.”