IAN Evatt admitted his side’s defending against Port Vale was “awful” as they conceded six goals for the first time at home since their move from Burnden Park.

Port Vale – who had been on a six-game losing streak going into the match – made a mockery of the form book by crashing in three goals in each half.

Manny Oyekele and Leon Legge gave John Askey’s side an electric start inside nine minutes but Gethin Jones’ first-ever senior goal seemed to have put Bolton back into the game.

Although Matt Gilks was needed on a few occasions, the Whites looked dangerous in attack and would have fancied their chances of getting back into the game even after Tom Conlon converted a soft penalty, conceded on the stroke of half time by Ricardo Santos.

Within four minutes of the restart, Cristiano Montano and David Worrall stretched the lead to five. Nathan Smith then headed a sixth – making this the first time since 1987 that a Vale side had scored half a dozen away from home.

Eoin Doyle and sub Lloyd Isgrove reduced the deficit, Tom White also hitting the bar with a late drive. But the damage had been done and Evatt tore into the performance in his post-match interview.

“It was a rude awakening,” he said. “Everything we spoke about during the week about them, traditional Port Vale a hard-working side and it’s intense, they will fight and battle, but they out-fought and out-battled us from minute one. It was unacceptable.

“The fans will be as unhappy as I am. Nobody would have seen this coming.

“It could have been 15 all. I have never seen a team defend so badly.

“All the credit that we have built up in recent weeks, hard work, five wins on the bounce, has now been undone in one game of football. We have to face the consequences.

“We were facing a team that had been struggling for results and from minute one we were awful.”

Asked to explain the performance, the Bolton boss believes his players simply gave themselves no chance of getting a foothold in the game.

“I just think we went out with the wrong attitude,” he said. “We had given them the messages and we knew what it was going to be like. You have to earn the right in every game, especially in this division, you have to give yourselves a chance and do the ugly side. The rest of it will come after that.

“But in both halves we immediately shot ourselves in the foot. We got ourselves back into it and dominated the first half and then gave a silly penalty away – whether it was a penalty or not is up for debate – I don’t think it was – but that’s irrelevant. But we gave ourselves another mountain to climb.

“We say the right things at half time because we still felt we had a chance. We’d dominated the game. And then within 60 seconds we’re out of it.

“It’s inexplicable. I just don’t see where it’s come from.

“We will be in first thing in the morning to sift through the debris and make sure everybody is under no illusion that it isn’t acceptable.”

Wanderers last shipped six goals at home in 1996, when they were heavily beaten by Manchester United at Burnden Park.