Aaron Morley is on his way to becoming a more complete midfielder in the eyes of manager Ian Evatt.

Boasting a “Premier League” passing range, the former Rochdale playmaker made an instant impact after his move to Bolton at the start of the year.

He began this season as first choice but spent much of September and October looking on from the side-lines, starting just one league game in two months.

Morley described the sudden change as “frustrating” – but later admitted he had improved his game behind the scenes by watching some of his team-mates at work.

Evatt has explained why Morley was brought out of the spotlight, and why he feels his time out of the team will ultimately be beneficial in the long run.

“It would have been strange for Aaron because from the age of 18 or 19 he has known nothing but playing every week. He never came out of a team,” he told The Bolton News.

“He had that constant flow of games and sometimes as a young player, the most growth you can have is when you come out of the team, where you can look from out to in.

“I think Aaron did that. It would have been disappointing for him because he has never felt that before, but he also respects that we have a really talented bunch of midfield players and it was someone else’s turn to share that responsibility.

“He spent time with me, time with the coaches on visual learning and the visual side of his game and I think he really took it onboard.”

Morley is 22 years old and already has 160 career appearances to his name.

After winning back his place in the league side in the 2-1 home win against Burton Albion he has since started the last three games against Cambridge, Fleetwood and Bristol Rovers, and is now showing improvement on the defensive side, says Evatt.

“He has worked hard, put in the hours in to make himself better, he is still only just turned 22 so he has got a bright future.

“I’ve been super impressed with him since he came back into the team. We all know his passing range is exceptional, he is a really progressive passer and can hit passes that Premier League players can dream of, but it was the other parts of his game that we needed to work on and adapt and I think he learned from that.

“At Rochdale he was asked to screen and was asked to protect but when you have lads at the back like we have that are capable of defending huge spaces one-v-one, we need him to engage further up the pitch, be there scrapping and fighting for second balls. But we also need that high press, which if you are a man down it fails and breaks down, so we needed to stop him screening and jump press onto the midfield player. The last few games, he’s done that great so onwards and upwards, I’m really pleased for him.”