PHIL Parkinson will send Wanderers out with a simple message against Aston Villa tonight: “Go and make it count.”

Unfancied – even on home turf – the Whites find themselves in a familiar underdog role facing Steve Bruce’s automatic promotion-chasers live on Sky Sports.

A bumper 20,000 crowd is expected at the Macron for the last game before the international break. And with a crammed April looming on the horizon, Parkinson’s advice to his players will be to leave nothing out on the pitch.

“It would be fantastic to look at the table on the back of a good result and performance,” he told The Bolton News.

“I think we owe it to ourselves and the supporters to make sure the levels are back up there, to what they have been at home.

“We were all disappointed with the last home result against Preston, even though they are a good side who have done well away this season.

“But we have to make this game count and send the supporters home knowing we have given absolutely everything to get a result.”

Wanderers currently have a six-point gap on the drop-zone and will know if that margin has been reduced by the time they kick off against Villa at 5.30pm.

Belief among the fans is mounting that a team written off after defeat at Villa Park in late September, with two points from the first 11 games, can maintain an unlikely survival bid.

“It is growing, that’s a fair way of looking at it, but we have to make sure we don’t start thinking the job is done, because it isn’t,” Parkinson warned. “We have got to keep that in mind. We have to keep going, doing everything right, and making sure we’re in a good position at the end of the season.”

Meanwhile, Wanderers Under-23s regular Adam Mitchell has been called up to the New Zealand squad to face Canada in a friendly next week.

The 21-year-old full-back was twice drafted into the senior set-up by the All Whites in 2015.

The game will be played in Spain next Sunday behind closed doors at the Pinatar Arena in San Pedro on the south-eastern coast.

n Wanderers’ promising young goalkeeper Jake Turner has joined Evo-Stik South team Frickley Athletic until the end of the season.