DOUGIE Freedman admits it’s a wrench to see players using Wanderers as a springboard for their own career – but he’s quite prepared for the latest loanee to follow suit.

Chris Herd was confirmed on a loan deal until November 8 from Aston Villa yesterday and should be pitched straight into battle against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

The versatile Australia international has been brought in to ease the pressure on the Whites’ paper-thin defensive ranks.

And while he has played just two games in 12 months for the Midlanders, the example of Alan Hutton – the Scotland international who returned from a loan spell with Bolton to earn a new three-year contract under Paul Lambert this season – should give him reason to believe his top-flight career is not over.

Freedman knows that if Herd succeeds, his side will benefit, but warned of the problems he is encountering building his team around loan players.

“I was watching Burnley on Match of the Day the other night and Lukas Jutkiewicz was probably the best player on the pitch,” he told The Bolton News.

“Craig Dawson was playing out of his skin, Alan Hutton was playing for Villa, so if it goes according to plan, I’ll be watching Chris on the telly in a couple of months too. Does it bug me? Of course it does.

“It seems to be a record that I’m getting where I polish people up.

“It goes back to James Vaughan at Palace, as soon as he went back he got a big move.

“You borrow these players, kick-start their career, they buy into what you are asking from them but then they return. It means you have to start all over again and that’s difficult from a coaching point of view.

“You get a system but the next minute you are changing it again because different players are coming in.”

Herd has not featured for Villa since last December and missed the last few months of last season for “personal reasons” but Freedman believes the 25-year-old is coming to Wanderers for the right reasons.

“I’ve been looking at him for years,” he said. “He’s an international player, a Premier League player with experience, and I think it’s a very good loan for us.

“I know I always say it but we had to beat off very tough opposition to get him in.

“I like to get loans in who are desperate to play, not people who are desperate to get away from their club.

“He can play different positions but he’s hungry to get some football. He’s here to prove a point, probably to Villa, and no doubt he’ll go back there, earn a new contract and be playing regularly in the Premier League in a few months. Unfortunately that’s what seems to happen to us.”