IAN Evatt was at a loss to explain how Wanderers went from penalty box villains to heroes in the space of a few days.

After defending their goal so resolutely in Tuesday night’s victory at Cheltenham, the same old problems at set pieces dogged the Whites against Tranmere.

Veteran defender Peter Clarke opened the scoring with a free header from a corner, leaving the Bolton boss shaking his head in dismay.

“It is so frustrating,” he said, “especially at set pieces, and with what I had seen on Tuesday night at Cheltenham, how we had defended the box and the aerial assault from Cheltenham.

“Today we just switched off. We’d spoken about Peter Clarke, I’ve known him for many years and he’s the same age as me. I played up against him a lot as kids and I know he’s very good in the opposition box and he’ll defend his own box with his life – that’s what he is, that’s what he does – and we didn’t mark him properly so they went 1-0 up and we never managed to get back into the game.”

Evatt admits the game was all-but over after Kieron Morris grabbed a second goal on 68 minutes, driving a low shot past Matt Gilks from the edge of the box.

Tranmere then grabbed a third from the penalty spot when Alex Baptiste was adjudged to have handballed Morgan Ferrier’s cross.

Evatt complained, however, that referee Charles Breakspear should have stopped the game a few moments earlier.

“The referee was going to blow for a foul on Ryan Delaney on the halfway line, the whistle was in his mouth but he chose not to – and I didn’t see what happened in the box,” he said.

“I asked the ref after the game why he’d put his whistle in his mouth and he said ‘I thought it was a foul and then I didn’t think it was a foul’ and by that time the play had gone on.

“We are on the end of another indifferent decision. But it is what it is, we gave them the second goal eventually by backing off. The lad is 20 yards from goal and nobody engages with him.

“We backed off and the ball ended up in the back of the net, so it’s more or less game over.

“At 1-0 we were still in the game and we were always going to get chances and dominate the ball but we never gave ourselves an opportunity at 2-0 because we were already out of the game.”