KEITH Hill was determined not to go overboard with his assessment of Wanderers’ desperate 7-1 defeat at Accrington.

The Bolton boss admits his players should be “embarrassed” by their performance at the Wham Stadium but believes they can use it as motivation in the months to come.

He also appealed to supporters to stick by their team after a dark day in East Lancashire.

“I don’t think it’s a time to overreact,” he told The Bolton News. “We just have to work tirelessly to put it right.

“I appreciate their support and we will need it now. I expect fans to be angry and disappointed but I also expect them to get behind the players, be realistic, and make sure they recover during the course of the week from a little bit of embarrassment and support us magnificently in the way they have been doing.

“We should be embarrassed, the players should be embarrassed, you have got to have that horrible feeling of disappointment in defeat so that you can rise again, be better. You don’t learn anything by not experiencing things like that.

“You have to remember those games, lodge them in a compartment of your brain where you don’t want it to happen again and keep reminding yourself.

“We have to move forward, learn from it. We’re certainly not going to give up because we have been beaten 7-1. We’ll take our dented pride into the next game we play.”