IAN Evatt has warned against over-reaction to Saturday’s 2-0 defeat against Sheffield Wednesday – particularly in the case of captain Ricardo Santos.

The defender’s mistake contributed to the first goal of the game for George Byers, a lead which was quickly doubled by Liam Palmer.

And though Wanderers’ confidence appeared visibly shaken at the time, Evatt maintains both Santos and his squad should be able to move on quickly, with Premier League Aston Villa the next visitors to the UniBol tomorrow night in the Carabao Cup.

“He’s human, he’s allowed to make mistakes,” said Evatt of his skipper. “We will back him, pick him up and go again. We know how good he is.

“No-one should ever doubt how good he is, he is fantastic and he will go again. We will all go again, and bigger and better things lie ahead for us both I think.”

Wanderers were second best on Saturday – a rare occurrence for a team which had not lost in its previous 13 outings, and which has been defeated just four times since mid-January.

Evatt accepts his players’ performance was not up to scratch and said his side had not been positive enough in possession to cause Wednesday major harm.

But as he digested the result, the Bolton boss said it must be put into some context by the fine run his team had enjoyed since March.

“There is nothing we can do to change that now, that result is gone,” he said. “As a club we are not used to that feeling, which is credit to what we have been trying to do, and been doing, but it is not nice and we have to work harder to be even better than we were there.

“They (Wednesday) are so strong, physical and powerful. We have to be even more incisive from our play, even braver, even more detail with our possession and I thought at times we went a bit safe, a bit sideways too many times and didn’t see the patterns they were offering where we told them the space was.

“I think that was probably down to the first goal and how much it rocked us.”

There will be no time for Bolton’s players to lick their wounds, with Steven Gerrard’s Villa in town for a televised League Cup encounter tomorrow night.

Evatt feels the game can be a welcome distraction after a tough opening month of fixtures in League One.

“It is a good game for us – and they are not getting any easier!” he said. “On the back of Villa we’ve got Plymouth away and they had a really good result today and that is a really tough place to go.

“September looks challenging with MK, Peterborough, Charlton, who I think are going well, so we have to dust ourselves down and go again.”