PHIL Parkinson was pleased to see Wanderers open up a five-point gap on the bottom three with a hard-earned point at Reading.

A draw was the least the Whites deserved at the Madejski Stadium as Adam Le Fondre came back to haunt his old club with a first-half strike.

It could have been more – and both Le Fondre and Will Buckley missed gilt-edged opportunities before Mo Barrow’s opener for Reading was levelled.

Bolton dominated the second half but failed to create the same number of clear-cut chances.

“On the balance of play we should have got all three points,” he said. “We had a lot of chances before they scored against the run of play but you have to keep knocking on the door.

“I think we dipped a little bit for five or 10 minutes after the goal, felt sorry for ourselves a bit, but when we got the goal back we started the second half really well.

“There’s always an element when you are getting players fit in the first team that you can fatigue a bit, so we had to make changes, but all in all we’ll take the point.”

Parkinson made seven changes to the team out-classed by Preston at home on Saturday, the result being a new-look team which played some attractive football in patches.

“We had to respond to Saturday because like I said in the press conference we just didn’t play as well as we could have done,” the manager said.

“We made seven changes, which is always a gamble, but the lads who came in played really, really well.

“It’s a lift for us to get a point, even though we should have had all three, but just the quality of the final ball and crosses into the box probably let us down a bit tonight.

“The way the lads applied themselves in a new system – we’d worked on it a bit Monday and then again this morning – was excellent.”