THINGS had been going swimmingly for Wanderers in pre-season up to this afternoon’s defeat at Wigan Athletic – which gave Ian Evatt plenty to think about.

Here are a few of the major talking points from a difficult 90 minutes at Bolton’s old Euxton training ground.

SOME PROMISE

Until Wigan really started to take hold of the game, debutant Jamie Mascoll had been getting some joy down the left side, creating the equalising goal for Nathan Delfouneso.

The former Charlton and Wycombe man has pace and wants to attack space in the same way we have seen Liam Gordon do in the opening few games of the summer.

It would be great to see some genuine competition on the left flank, even though Mascoll is behind the rest of the squad in terms of fitness.

ADAM BOMBED?

Ian Evatt has played it very cool when it comes to his former Blackpool team-mate, Charlie Adam, and had previously said the 34-year-old was only with the club to train… for now.

Seeing him on the team-sheet for the Wigan game certainly raised hopes that Wanderers may be looking into something more permanent. But the experienced Scot has not played much football of late and didn’t really get into the game.

Does that affect his chances of staying with Bolton? Talk around the club at the moment would suggest that nothing is close to being agreed.

YOUTH CLUBBED

We were pre-warned that this would be a youthful starting line-up for the Whites, and though Adam, Delfouneso and Crawford were in there it did have a rather experimental feel.

Evatt has questioned whether some of his younger players were pushed forward too quickly last season, when they came to the club’s aid in its hour of need. The head coach has to make some big decisions now on whether to keep them in the first team fold, get them out on loan, or potentially risk them stagnating on the fringes of his squad without an Under-23s team.

MISSING MEN

Alex Baptiste, Reiss Greenidge and Muhammadu Faal have missed the last two friendly games and Eoin Doyle also sat this one out with a dead leg. None of the injury issues are long term but there may be questions about the depth of Evatt’s squad currently, which need to be addressed.

The head coach wanted four players in by the close of this week and brought in Mascoll. Will he have more aboard by the time the team take to the pitch against Crewe on Friday night?

ALRIGHT ON THE NIGHT

Hey, if you are going to lose a game 5-1, why not make it pre-season?

The Bradford City cup tie a week on Saturday is where it will all have to come together, and even that game is arguably expendable in comparison with the big League Two kick-off against Forest Green.

Evatt says he learned a lot about his players in defeat. His next team-sheet will be a very interesting one indeed.