Bolton Wanderers defender Matt Mills calls for unity on and off the pitch as Dougie Freedman's side look to recover from a poor start to the season

Relationships between the club and its fans have been stretched in the last few weeks but Dougie Freedman’s men have a chance to start putting it right with a home double header against Sheffield Wednesday and Rotherham United in the next eight days.

Mills accepts that only results on the pitch will truly get supporters back onside but the defender cannot fault the backing players have had on the pitch.

“We need to start putting some points on the board,” he said. “It’s frustrating from a player’s point of view because I think the performances have been worth more than we have got but the most important thing right now is that everyone sticks together.

“By that I mean the players, we need to stay as a team – and we will – but also the fans.

“They were brilliant at Leeds. They asked players to give 100 per cent and I think aside from the first five minutes, they got it.”

Mills felt that the international break came at a good time for the Whites, who are without a win in their first five Championship games.

“I’m not generally a fan of them,” he said. “But I think this one gives us the chance to get back on to the training ground and really work hard. I think we need to get ourselves together.

“Some of the players have needed an extra bit of rest because the Capital One Cup games have gone into extra time and it has been Saturday-Tuesday for a few weeks.”

After the Leeds defeat, the focus fell on the number of chances that Wanderers failed to take. But Mills refuses to lay the blame solely at the feet of the strikers.

“It’s difficult for me to comment on,” he said. “You would have to ask one of the strikers. I am in the team to try and defend.

“It’s great when one or two goals go in because it can make your life a bit easier, but it happens.”

After a transfer window in which Wanderers did not pay a single transfer fee for a senior player, the reality of the changing financial situation is starting to hit home hard with supporters – many of whom are demanding answers about the direction their club is heading.

And it has not been lost on the dressing room, where Mills admits the landscape is very different from the one he joined from Leicester City soon after Wanderers dropped into the Championship.

“When you get relegated from the Premier League, there is always going to be a change,” he said. “To be fair to the manager I would say it is only this season he has started to assemble the squad that he really wants.

“The difficulty of that; the financial side of keeping to the needs and the means of the club, which obviously he is doing.

“But it is a very difficult period when you don't get promoted the first year. It does take some adjustment but it is something, as players, we need to adapt to more quickly. We need to get results.”