KEVIN Nolan has warned his Wanderers' team-mates that they could be in for a Boxing Day belting if they underestimate Sunderland.

The Bolton captain, still smarting from Tuesday's Carling Cup defeat at Wigan, fears another upset could be on the cards, if the Whites are not careful.

Wanderers travel to Wearside on Monday as hot favourites to beat Mick McCarthy's Black Cats, who have lost their last nine Premiership games, have yet to win at home this season and are rooted at the foot of the table, 11 points adrift of safety after taking just five points from 17 games.

But Nolan fears complacency could be their arch enemy and cites Wigan's ability to bounce back from five successive Premiership defeats to illustrate his point.

"We've missed out on our best chance of a trophy, but we just have to grin and bear it and put it to the back of our mind," he said, reflecting on the disappointment of failing to make the semi-finals of the Carling Cup.

"We now have to grab a win at Sunderland, which is not going to be easy, even though they are going through a bad time.

"We've seen how Wigan can turn things around. They lost five on the spin, but came back with a 3-0 victory over Charlton on Saturday and then one over us as well.

"When you look at Sunderland's position it would be easy to go there and sit back and think we can walk over them, but we can't do that.

"That's not Bolton Wanderers, so we have to go there and make sure we are professional and do our jobs right because most of us did not do that against Wigan."

Nolan is confident, however, that Wanderers have the mental strength to overcome their cup disappointment.

"We have occasionally had some disappointing results, but we've managed to erase them very quickly in the next game," he added.

"We just have to go to Sunderland and put the pressure on them and make sure we come away with three points.

"Even though the defeat to Wigan is going to hurt us for a few days, we have to learn from it.

"The best way to forget about it is by making sure we qualify for Europe again next season."