CONOR Bradley had his first taste of adversity in a Bolton Wanderers shirt at the weekend – but Gethin Jones believes he will react just fine.

The on-loan Liverpool wing-back missed a big chance half after half an hour against Sheffield Wednesday, then saw the game quickly taken away with two goals in two minutes.

It was Bradley’s first defeat at first team club level of any kind, although he had ended up on the losing side for both Northern Ireland and Liverpool’s Under-21s.

Jones has been hugely impressed with the teenager since his arrival at the UniBol.

“He is brilliant and you forget sometimes that he is so young,” he told The Bolton News. “At the start I felt like I was coaching him quite a bit because he is playing wing-back, rather than the full-back position he might have been used to at Liverpool.

“He has taken it all on board, he has been brilliant, and I have loved playing with him.”

Bradley and the rest of the Wanderers squad have little time to dwell on Saturday’s defeat with a Carabao Cup Second Round tie against Aston Villa on the agenda tonight.

Jones says he has learned to process poor results and says he and other more experienced members of the dressing room will be helping their team-mates do the same.

“I used to let it get to me but now I have learned you have to keep your football life at work and go and enjoy what you have,” he explained. “At the end of the day you will lose games, you won’t be at the top of your performance every week.

“I will obviously think of little things but when we come in Monday we’ll have a good conversation about it and move on.

“When you are younger one little mistake can play on your mind for months and weeks sometimes, drop your confidence, but as you get older you tend to realise a lot more that football can change really quickly. One week you can be 10 out of 10, the next a three or a two, you never know.

“One thing I will say is that it is a very close group in there – we will regroup together, and we will work hard every single day to give our all for the football club.”

Wanderers have not been to the third round of the Carabao Cup since 2014 when they exited the competition to Chelsea in one of Dougie Freedman’s final games in charge.

Jones believes the game – to be televised on Sky Sports – gives Bolton a reminder of the level of football to which they aspire.

“The Villa game is exciting and we’re all buzzing to be involved in it,” he said.

“We haven’t been able to concentrate on it yet, we have been looking at the league games, but now we can look ahead.

“For me, this club deserves to be in the Premier League, you can see how big it is. And it will be brilliant for us to have a game like that on Tuesday to show everyone.”