Portsmouth caretaker manager Simon Bassey was left ruing moments of sloppy defending during their 3-0 defeat against Wanderers.

Dion Charles, Kieran Lee and Eoin Toal were all on target as the Whites recorded a 12th league win of the campaign.

Pompey struggled to carve out clear-cut chances in the final third, with James Trafford having little to do in the Bolton goal.

Bassey was particularly disappointed with the first two goals and says it was always going to be tough from that point against “a good team”.

The 46-year-old said: “We have got a habit of making it really hard for ourselves at the moment. We came here on Tuesday night and gave a poor goal away after starting okay.

“Today, I thought we started okay. We force them into a straight ball in the air, we don’t deal with it, we don’t cover round and we’re 1-0 down.

“We huffed and puffed first half, towards the back end I thought we came into it a little bit more. I spoke to the group at half time and we come out, two minutes later the game is over.

“It’s an individual error, we understand that happens in football. But again we force a straight ball, we don’t track our runner and don’t defend one-v-one well enough.

“2-0 down and away from home against a good team, in the position we’re in, it gives us a real problem and we suffered from then on.”

He added: “We have all got to take responsibility for today. I changed the shape, I picked the tactics and it never quite worked from an attacking point of view. Defensively, we have got to do better than that.”

Portsmouth are still searching for a new head coach following Danny Cowley’s recent sacking, but Bassey is just focusing on training next week.

“I’m sure I will speak to Andy (Cullen) and Richard (Hughes) post-match, but I am none the wiser than you guys I imagine,” he said.

“Monday morning, we have got work to do. It is not the time to feel sorry for yourself, this is a big boy’s football club. We have got to put your big boy pants on, come to work Monday and start owning stuff.”