Ian Evatt hailed Aaron Morley after the midfielder scored a stunning free kick during Wanderers’ 4-0 win against Manchester United Under-21s.

Morley found a way past Nathan Bishop with a superb strike from a tight angle as the Whites secured their place in the Papa Johns Trophy quarter final.

Evatt was pleased with the midfielder’s performance against United’s youngsters and believes he is an “exciting talent”.

“His set play delivery is excellent,” said the Bolton boss. “It is one of the main strengths of his game.

“He is a wonderful passer, we know that, and he is learning the other side of the game. He is not sitting off and screening like he used to.

“He is understanding now when to jump, how to jump, who to jump to and he is becoming more aggressive in the press.

“He is a young player who has had to learn because at Rochdale he was asked to do something completely different to what we require him to do.

“I was really pleased with how he is starting to implement that into his game. The rest of his game in terms of in possession is as good as you’ll see, he is an exciting talent.”

Wanderers created a plethora of chances in the final third but struggled to convert them during the first half.

Evatt admits his side need to be more clinical in the league but was encouraged by their build-up play.

He added: “I think we have to back our players to take those chances and eventually we’re going to.

“Against opposition in our league, we’re not going to get as many so we need to be more clinical than we were.

“But the way we got there was really good against a team who press high. I was pleased with some of our movement and final third quality. It was just the end bit again.

“We looked a threat from set plays, which I expected against an Under-21 team. I thought we defender our box much better than we did on Saturday, but a different type of challenge of course.”

Will Aimson made his first start since suffering a hamstring injury while playing for the B Team back in October.

“He came through fine, which is obviously important given that Gethin (Jones) could potentially miss Saturday and Rico (Santos) is slowly improving, but it is not going to be a fast process with him,” the manager explained.

“It is important we had him back available again and I thought he was good.”