WANDERERS’ Wembley capitulation in the play-off final brought some terrible memories flooding back for Kevin Davies.

Captain of the side humbled 5-0 by Stoke City in the FA Cup semi-final of 2011, some of the sights and sounds of last weekend’s defeat to Oxford United had a depressingly familiar ring.

The former England striker had been confident of a result and excited to see how his former club would cope at Championship level. But after watching Ian Evatt’s side get so comprehensively outplayed on the day, he could only share in the fans’ disappointment.

“It felt exactly like the semi-final,” he told The Bolton News. “I know that Wembley can do strange things to people. I have seen it first-hand, even if you have been there before, it can get to you.

“But you’d have thought having won the year before in the Papa Johns you would have felt more comfortable, more relaxed, and maybe that is the problem, I don’t know.

“It felt like there wasn’t a Plan B. They kept going and going but playing into their hands. There wasn’t much quality in the final third, the crosses were too deep or over the bar, the set pieces were disappointing. You just felt deflated.

“Coming out of the ground and seeing a few people crying, it brought back a few bad memories for me, personally.

“It is a big opportunity missed. That is the big thing. Next season looks like it will be a bit tougher, so it feels that bit worse.”

Davies empathises with how the Bolton players must be feeling, having been an integral part of Owen Coyle’s team that felt FA Cup destiny was on their side after the passing of the legendary Nat Lofthouse earlier that year.

Losing a game of that magnitude is still a sore subject even 13 years on and he hopes that the current squad is able to process the disappointment quicker.

“That, for me, was the worst day I had in football,” he said. “Relegations hurt but I was fortunate with play-offs, had a couple and got promoted, and it is an amazing way to go up. But losing at Wembley in any game just hurts so much.

“I just looked at that game on Saturday and thought they needed some help. I don’t know if they needed to change the formation, but they stuck to that gameplan, and it just wasn’t working.

“It can be down to the manager, down to someone on the pitch, you get hold of it and maybe simplify it a bit, get knockdowns, just try and make Oxford think a bit more. They didn’t put them under enough pressure.

“I know what they will be feeling like now and it is difficult. You put yourself into the player’s position.

“I was speaking to George Thomason’s dad in the lounge at Wembley and we were talking about missing out on automatics but that it would have been such a great way to go up. I honestly thought they would be alright on the day, probably like you and a lot of other people.

“I said to him it would be a great opportunity for his son to go and play a great standard of football in the Championship, and that is what hurts when you are a player. It’s the missed opportunity.

“If it’s a screamer in the top corner or a bad refereeing decision, that’s one thing, but I just felt Oxford ran that bit harder and wanted it more. And that is a really tough one to take as a player.

“Some of the key Bolton players just didn’t affect the game, turn up, whatever you want to call it.

“That is what hurts when you reflect on it. There will be a lot of decisions made off the back of that game, contracts, recruitment, big stuff, and missing that opportunity to go and play at that level is hard. You just have to find a way to get through the summer, get training again in a few weeks, and focus on going harder next year, that’s all you can do, really.”

Wanderers had already missed out on their primary target, a top two spot, but after negotiating an awkward semi-final against Barnsley, Davies shared in the general optimism that promotion could be secured on the grandest stage of them all.

Some feel the inconsistency which had been shown earlier in the season – and particularly since the turn of the year - was a portent to what was to come at Wembley. But Davies was nevertheless bamboozled by just how subdued Bolton were on the day.

“I haven’t watched them week-in, week-out, so I can only go off what I saw in the play-offs and then at Wembley but from the results in the first half of the year, which looked amazing, it has been a bit inconsistent since then,” he said.

“They were favourites going in and it was all there for them. But I sat there with the kids thinking ‘come on, there has to be a spark from somewhere.’ “It was a big crowd and when the back three didn’t have options it went back and the frustration grew and grew. There were a few jeers at half time as well, so you’d expect a reaction second half, but Oxford were pretty comfortable throughout the game, really.

“They changed it a little bit with the two big lads coming on up front but they didn’t really go that direct into them, didn’t cause them any problems at all. Oxford defended well but there weren’t enough questions asked.

“I spoke to a few fans on the way out and they were completely gutted.”

What the lasting effect of the play-off final defeat will be is unclear, and in Evatt’s own words the impact looks likely to linger for a long time.

Davies hopes the Bolton boss will get a chance to freshen up his squad in the summer to mitigate the risks of a hangover into next season but he can understand the frustration still being felt around the fanbase.

“I think you’d have to say the manager has done well since he has been there,” he said. “But it’ll boil down to recruitment, as it always does.

“There might be a few who feel they should be playing at a higher level who can be sold, use the money wisely.

“It is a tough one because there were a lot of disappointed people afterwards, not anger, just people who couldn’t really why it hadn’t changed and why Oxford had done such a job on them, really. That might take a good while to get over.”