After watching skipper Ricardo Santos open his Bolton account with two against his former club Peterborough United, Ian Evatt admitted: “We have created a monster!”

Having failed to find the back of the net in 117 previous games, Santos found his scoring touch with impeccable timing to help the Whites to their biggest league away win in more than two decades.

Although his first goal was disputed at the time – Gethin Jones poking a shot at goal which bounced off the defender while he was on the ground – his second, scored in front of the 1,700 travelling fans, to make it 5-0, will live long in the memory.

“He just needed one off his backside,” said manager, Evatt. “We always say about the extra pass, and Gethin made the extra pass, which was nice to see.

“Once he got that and to go and get the second was great. This game meant a lot to Rico, he was a very young player when he came here before but he was a shell of himself and he was disappointed how it ended up.

“We have created a monster. He is a fantastic player and we are lucky to have him.”

Alongside Santos in defence, Luke Mbete made an impressive debut.

Signed on loan from Manchester City after an indifferent spell at Huddersfield Town in the Championship during the first half of the season, Mbete has quickly adapted to his role as left-sided centre-half.

“Luke was really good, really impressive,” said Evatt. “He was good with the ball, joining in for the second goal with the penalty.

“I’m pleased with the way he took on information because that is alien to him at Manchester City, stepping in, overlapping and underlapping. They tend to play a back four.

“I am really pleased to see a smile on his face and enjoying his football again.”

Wanderers had led the game 2-0 at half time but Peterborough would have fancied their chances of getting back into it until a flurry of goals after the break, including two for Charles to complete his hat-trick.

“We recognised where the space was,” said Evatt, asked what he has said to his players. “We got ahead with the two goals, which was really important, so at half time we spoke to the players about once their players had jumped to our wingbacks, the space was down the sides. We utilised that a lot better in the second half, Gethin was superb down the right, and Declan down the left.

“Peterborough’s strength is going forward and they have some wonderful attacking players but we wanted to challenge them going the other way and I think we did that, overloaded their full-backs with our wing-backs and number eights making corner runs and with our centre-backs joining in as well.”

Wanderers move into fourth and are still six points behind the top two, who also have games in hand.

“I think other teams will look at it and say it is a good victory but you don’t make statement wins in February. We have got a long way to go,” Evatt remarked.

“All we are doing is focussing on the next game. It is really boring and it’s a cliché but it is all we can do for now.

“We obviously want them to enjoy a win, be confident, but we need to stay grounded and level-headed.”