Ian Evatt was disappointed that Dapo Afolayan’s indiscretion against Lincoln City was not dealt with internally between the two clubs.

The Bolton striker was banned for three games for violent conduct after being reported to the Football Association for an elbow on Imps midfielder Lasse Sorensen.

Referee Geoff Eltringham and his assistants failed to spot the incident and it was not mentioned in despatches after the final whistle – but Evatt said he discovered the next day that Lincoln had filed their complaint.

Evatt felt it could have been better managed.

“I was aware of it on the Saturday afternoon,” he said. “I don’t think anybody saw it apart from their manager (Mark Kennedy) and there is some frustration for me that he didn’t speak to me about it before, because I think managers should deal with that internally.

“But if we are opening up that can of worms, tit for tat kind of nature, then there will be a lot more red cards during the course of a football season.

“It is what it is. We will deal with it and move on.”

Wanderers managed without Afolayan as they beat Barnsley 3-0 to return to fifth spot in League One.

After draws against Derby County and Lincoln City had left Bolton supporters feeling short-changed, the tone and tempo of the performance at Oakwell was noticeably different.

“When we play with the right energy and attitude, forget all the technique, we are a technical team, there is no doubt about that, but when we play with the right aggression and intensity with and without the ball we can be a really good team,” the manager noted.

“We let ourselves down in the first half at Lincoln and wanted to set the record straight. There was frustration at the way the two games against Barnsley had gone already this season, so there was a feeling we had to turn up and show the best version of ourselves.”

Barnsley pushed hard to get back into the game after half time despite being reduced to 10 men with Mads Andersen’s sending off.

Wanderers had to defend well to keep their 12th clean sheet of the season but Evatt was confident the tide would change again.

“Barnsley are a really good out-of-possession team,” he said.

“Michael (Duff) has them really well coached, the way they press is really aggressive, and it is intelligent at times. You have to be calm and composed to keep that press off.

“We knew they were going to have a go in the second half, we knew it would last for 20-25 minutes and it was important to manage that spell. After that they would fatigue and we could bring fresh legs on to try and dominate the ball again.

“You saw with the third goal that was exactly the case and we should probably have gone on to score one or two more goals after that.

“This is a good team and we have to respect that but the way we went about our business was really impressive.”