ANTONI Sarcevic has called on some of his Wanderers team-mates to “step up” and do the job they were brought to do this season.

The Bolton captain scored a crucial equaliser against Mansfield Town last night but took little joy from gaining only a point from a game he felt was there to be won.

Sarcevic has scored three goals in his last five outings and four for the season but is part of a Wanderers side that has thus far struggled badly to live up to its billing under new boss Ian Evatt.

Asked his thoughts on the Mansfield draw, the midfielder said: “I just think this is a repetitive sort of answer – frustrating, disappointing, all those words. I’m running out of them at the minute.

“We have to start winning. It’s mentality, desire, I can easily speak for everyone else but there are 10 other lads in there. We need more of those factors and we’ll see better results.

“Again, it’s like Barrow, it’s bittersweet. It hurts me a lot because these are the games we should be celebrating and going home happy and we’re not.

“A lot of us – including myself and the management – have to do a lot, lot more.”

Wanderers made 20 new signings in the summer but the wholesale changes have yet to bed down on the pitch and earn consistent results.

The club sit 20th in the table with two wins from 11 games and Sarcevic has become frustrated with the poor start to the season.

“I am a captain so I can’t sit here for other players but they knew what they signed, they knew what they were coming into,” he said. “If they can’t adapt to what we want them to do this year then… I’ll bite my tongue. They all knew what they’d signed up to in order to get this club back up where it belongs.

“You don’t just sign a contract and then go off and tell all your mates ‘I play for Bolton Wanderers’ it’s more than that. Honestly, it hurts me. Lads need to understand what this is.

“I did what I did last year but I came back here to be proud of being a captain of the club and take it back up.

“I am not blaming lads in the squad – but I hope some of them step up.”

Asked to compare the quality at Bolton with Plymouth Argyle – the club Sarcevic helped to promotion from League Two last season – he said there was untapped potential within his current dressing room.

“Every team is different and we’re a good squad. I think there’s good players at the football club,” he said. “It’s obviously something inside the lads, not ability, because the gaffer and those above wouldn’t have signed them if they couldn’t get us promoted. I think there’s just something in them that has to come out.

“It’s just to understand what you are a part of. We’re the luckiest footballers in League Two by a mile, and we need to start recognising it a bit quicker.”

Ian Evatt said last night that Sarcevic, Ricardo Santos and Ryan Delaney had been “carrying” the rest of the side in recent weeks.

But for the Mancunian midfielder, such high praise is in distinct contrast to the criticism he got for his performances at the start of the season, particularly on social media.

“I take criticism and I have had it throughout my career but I was getting it one game into the season, which for me, is a bit crazy,” he said.

“We’re a new team and everyone is adapting. I took the criticism and some of it got a bit far-fetched, it was ridiculous. I never spat my dummy out or anything like that. People don’t know what I do back home, I have a good family, a good base that keeps me strong. And it shows on the pitch what I have been doing.

“I can only do what I am doing. And I hope that what I am doing on the pitch, others can see it, and start stepping up as well.”