Manchester United's Ethan Hamilton on life in League One with Bolton

At 21, the midfielder could still be turning out for United’s academy side each week and reporting for duty every morning at Carrington along with the first team multi-millionaires.

He had forced his way on to the fringes of the first team at one stage under Jose Mourinho and earned a new deal which takes him to this summer but the opportunities never quite materialised and he had a career decision to make – stay and wait, or spread his wings and start building his CV.

The Scottish youngster has never been concerned about seeking out opportunities further afield and has now spent the last 18 months gaining experience in League One, which brought him to Wanderers - via Rochdale and Southend - at the start of the month.

“Making that step up when three points are at stake, it was a totally different experience,” he told The Bolton News. “It’s so much better than academy football because you have got something to fight towards, winning matches.

“When you are playing at academy level the focus is on improving and developing but on a matchday when you are playing at senior level you look around the dressing room and you are all fighting for each other. It’s all about the result.

“Here, I’m surrounded by experienced players, the likes of Lowey (Jason Lowe) and the two Murphs (Daryl and Luke Murphy), they have played at a good level and training alongside them every day I can pick up bits and pieces. It’s a case of keeping your eyes and ears wide open.”

Born in Edinburgh, Hamilton was discovered playing at the same boys club as another former Reds midfielder, Darren Fletcher.

His United career was, at first, a long-distance affair but the youngster says he loved every moment of his Premier League experience.

“United spotted me when I was playing at Hutchy Vale, the local boys team, and I first went down to Manchester when I was 12,” he said. “It was a case of going down there in the holidays every few months and spending a week at a time until I was about 15 and then I moved to do a year of school.

“There’s no getting away from it, United are a massive club and at 16 it’s an amazing place to play.

“Everything there is geared towards making you the best you can be and the coaching is first class.”

It might have been the media training, or a sense of diplomacy, but Hamilton did not want to be drawn into the difficulties United have had in recent months, rather he was keen to talk about how he can help Wanderers in their current predicament.

Re-united with Keith Hill, who had initially taken him to Rochdale last season, Hamilton reckons his own game suits the one Bolton are looking to play.

“He’s a very good manager and it was good to come here knowing the way he works,” he said. “I think he gets the best out of me, I really do.

“I want to be a box-to-box midfielder and he makes demands of you in that way, gets you playing on the front foot as much as you can.

“It is the way he wants to play football and I think we’re all buying into it now.”

Hamilton had an eventful debut at Spotland a few weeks ago, striking both the post and bar in what was a busy 90 minutes. But with four straight defeats on the board he accepts a win against Bristol Rovers tonight would be a big boost to confidence.

The club have had 10 days to sit and look at a table which makes tough reading but the Scot says no time has been wasted on the training ground.

“I can only see sense in taking it game by game,” he said. “We’ve worked really hard in training to nail down how the manager wants us to be playing and now it’s a case of putting that into practice.

“It’ll have been a week-and-a-half since the last game but I promise there has been a lot of hard graft.

“We know how we want to go about the Bristol game so it’s about us turning up to do our jobs on the night.”