RICARDO Santos insists Wanderers do have the fight to maintain an automatic promotion challenge this season.

Humbled by neighbours Wigan Athletic at the weekend, questions have again been asked of Ian Evatt’s team and their ability to handle League One’s most aggressive opponents.

Knowing that Bolton are being written-off by some as having a ‘soft centre’ the club captain says such criticism should act as inspiration.

“People will have opinions but it has to motivate us,” he told The Bolton News. “Personally, seeing the team every day, I think we have got that heart.

“This is a different team compared to last year, I think we are stronger.

“People will write us off. I think that will push us on, and we have got to prove it on Saturday at Burton.”

Wanderers remain second in the table after taking nine points from their first four games but go to Burton on Saturday looking for their first-ever win at the Pirelli Stadium.

Santos knows there will be no sympathy but he is confident there will be a reaction from the players, whose pride has been stung by their previous result.

“It is never easy to go to Burton and perform, we know that,” he said.

“But we’d gone to Cheltenham – and that is a hard place to play – and won the game 3-0 and looked comfortable. I think it will be a similar game.

“We have got to make it right for ourselves and for the club.

“That’s the good thing about football, there is always another chance to pick up points. If we go there, play well, get a result, then we will feel better.”

Reflecting on the Wigan defeat, Santos believes it might be a blessing that it happened in the first month of the season.

“It is probably best to happen now rather than later on, it is still early days, we have time to learn from the game and recover from it.

“Obviously there is a rivalry and we want to win this game especially, I know that, and I am disappointed it didn’t happen.

“Burton will be a hard test, they probably watched that game and think they can put one on us. We need to be ready.

“But it is a long old season so we have to put that one behind us now and go and get three points on Saturday.”

Wanderers were able to give Jon Dadi Bodvarsson his first competitive action since January with a second-half cameo against Wigan.

Evatt believes the Icelander is not yet at a stage where he is ready to start games.

“Obviously he missed a key period of fitness and is playing catch-up a little bit. When you miss parts of pre-season it can be difficult to recover from,” he added.

“Eoin Toal is the same as well – but they both need to work hard now to get back to the fitness levels we need them to be at to play for our team.”