IAN Evatt is sick to death of Wanderers giving their opponents a head start.

Only once in nine outings this season have the Whites struck first – and no side in League Two has spent a greater proportion of their time chasing a losing score-line.

Bolton found themselves two down inside four minutes at Barrow on Tuesday night and Evatt feels his players have got to be more prepared for the early onslaught that is going to come their way.

Free-scoring Cambridge will have no time for reputation at the Abbey Stadium as they look to continue an excellent start to the season and Wanderers have been fairly warned that they cannot afford another careless start to the game.

“We’re not playing our best football until we’re behind in games and that’s frustrating and annoying and that can only be mental, it can only be psychological,” he said.

“Yes, we are a huge target for everybody and teams want to beat us, and what you’ll find is the first 20 minutes, the opposition will have a real good go at us and a right good go at us because it’s Bolton Wanderers and I don’t think we’re playing that first 20 minutes well enough.

“Whether we think we can turn up and just have the possession and build attacks free at will from the very first minute, you can’t. In football, you have to earn the right to play and if it means rolling your sleeves up and winning headers and winning tackles and sticking it behind their back four or three, whatever they play for the first five or 10 minutes until the game settles, then fine.

“That’s not who we are and we don’t want that to define us and be that team, but for a spell we might need to do that, just to give ourselves a foothold and a chance and then build from there. I don’t think we’ve giving ourselves a chance at the moment."

Wanderers go into Saturday’s game as the underdogs, a product of the frightening inconsistency they have shown over the course of the first seven games.

“We could be sat here now and probably should be back here now four games unbeaten and probably three or four more points on the board,” Evatt said. “We’re not, but it’s amazing at the minute. It feels like you fix one thing and then something else breaks and then you fix something else and it’s just like leaking all over the place.

“We need to put it together, we know that and we are working hard to do that. We can see what’s wrong, they can see what’s wrong but they’ve got to go out there and do it and we’ve got a great opportunity now to go to the league leaders at present and get a result and if we play like we do and have done in spells, we’ll give them a good game.”