GETHIN Jones won’t be retracting his pre-season target of promotion despite Wanderers’ slow start.

Defeat at Colchester United on Saturday left Ian Evatt’s side as one of only four in League Two who have yet to register a point after two games.

But the full-back, who was one of Bolton’s most impressive performers at the JobServe Community Stadium, insists the team left on Saturday evening feeling confident about the future.

“We definitely haven’t changed our minds - promotion is still the main objective and we want to be champions of this league,” he told The Bolton News.

“We know we can be up there at the end of the season.

“It will take time to perfect. No team I’ve ever known has been perfect - not even the Invincibles at Arsenal, they would still have been looking to improve.”

Defeat at Colchester leaves Evatt as the only Bolton boss in history to lose his opening four competitive games - and turning form around has been made more difficult by the loss of captain, Antoni Sarcevic, and defender, Reiss Greenidge, through injury.

Despite the setbacks thus far, Jones remains as confident as his manager that the tide will turn.

“If course we’re disappointed,” he said. “We’ve said plenty of times there are 17/18 new players here and it might take time. Even the formation we played, we only started working on it Thursday and Friday this week.

“I think we can be positive about the way we played.

“The players we brought in this summer have quality. We just need to put teams to bed, really, when we are on top.”

Wanderers had manufactured some good chances at Colchester before conceding a soft goal before half time, a pattern which was replicated after the interval.

Again, they had opportunities to equalise, only for the U’s to hit them with a counter punch.

“We’re frustrated,” Jones said. “First half against Forest Green last week we should have put chances away, second half we conceded. It was exactly the same this week - we dominated the game.

“We changed formation and I thought it worked really well, created loads of chances, but then we concede on a set piece and it kills us a bit.

“We stuck to our guns, played well again in the second half, but then it’s a sloppy goal again.

“We have worked hard to cancel teams out. I think the way we play, high tempo, we will give some chances to the opposition, there will be space. But we have to deal better with those situations.

“But we said in the dressing room that it is the best we have been, including pre-season as well, so we have got to stay positive.”