KEITH Hill hopes the truth will out for Bolton Wanderers as they await news of a potential points deduction in League One.

It is understood that a second disciplinary panel will meet soon to review an appeal from the EFL, who claim the five-point suspended penalty originally handed out to the club for failing to fulfil fixtures against Brentford and Doncaster was “too lenient.”

The league has been pressured by several member clubs to lobby for stronger punishment and said in a statement last week they would appeal in the “strongest possible sense” after learning the details of Bolton’s case.

Wanderers, who were also handed a £70,000 fine, half of which is suspended for 18 months, have also vowed to vigorously contest any change in the verdict.

It is not yet known when the findings of the second hearing will be announced, which leaves Bolton boss Hill in the familiar position of trying to keep focus on the football.

He hopes the facts of the case, which have also yet to become public, are enough to provide a positive outcome for club.

“I have no opinion on it – I’m just trying to focus in on the games,” he told The Bolton News.

“I won’t sit there and wait for what may eventually happen. I just want focus on the 29 games that we have got remaining.

“I can’t persuade one way or the other. It should be factual – and they remain in the hands of the EFL, Bolton Wanderers and the panel.

“I am sure we will get the right decision for Bolton Wanderers FC.”

Wanderers returned to the training ground this week with the prospect of no weekend game after their exit from the FA Cup.

Eager to make amends after the heavy defeat at Accrington on Saturday, Hill wants to make sure his players are in the right frame of mind to return to action and show that the result was a one-off. As such, he wants to minimise any off-the-field distraction.

“We can only deal with what we can realistically control – what we do on the training pitch, the next opponents we come up against, trying to get as many points as we can.

“We let ourselves down (at Accrington) but we have got to get on to our knees and then start to learn walking again.

“I want us to hit our next opponents really hard. I don’t want this to damage confidence too much because it’s a rollercoaster season and we have to realise how far we’ve come. We have to stick to the plan.”

After finally overhauling the 12-point deduction imposed for going into administration with victory against MK Dons, the severity of the Accrington result came as somewhat of a shock to all concerned.

Hill believes it could help to ground his players for the festive schedule where he hopes to make up more ground on the teams above the Whites in the League One table.

“We have to make sure this is a distant memory – a reminder maybe of the mountain we still have to climb,” he said.

“We can’t just think that we achieved something because we got to positive points last week.

“We have got to get our work bags out again and be better than our opponents.”

The EFL have come in for heavy criticism from all quarters for their role in the Wanderers’ disciplinary saga, and in particular their inaction around the two postponed fixtures against Brentford and Doncaster.

Back in August, former Bolton boss Phil Parkinson and club officials had voiced their concerns to the league over the welfare of younger players well in advance of the Doncaster game, and had called for the previous match at Tranmere Rovers to be called off on similar grounds.

The match was eventually called-off the day before it was meant to be contested, with Bolton citing advice in the Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan handbook why their Under-18s and 23s players had exceeded the recommended number of games meant to be played at academy level, let alone senior.

It is understood that player availability at the time meant that players as young as 15 would have been drafted on to the bench to make up numbers if the Doncaster game had gone ahead.