IT is difficult to ignore with a quarter of the season gone, the disparity between how Ian Evatt and his team rate their chances of success in League One this season, and the view shared by an increasing number of the club’s fanbase.

Rather like the opening chimes of England’s terrace classic “Three Lions,” the upbeat, if often misunderstood message of “it’s coming home” bounces along with dour assessments from pundits Alan Hansen, Trevor Brooking and Jimmy Hill, acting like a down-note in the background.

“We’re not creative enough, we’re not positive enough. We’ll keep on getting bad results, etc.”

There was a deliberate irony in the words composed by Ian Broudie, Frank Skinner and David Baddiel back then. The song was about longing, the constant contradiction in every football supporter between the dream and the reality. And there was something of the same tone in Ian Evatt’s voice as he sat down after this dispiriting defeat to reassure folk that things would improve after the international break and that “all was not lost.”

Evatt’s ultra-confidence, both in the style of football he introduced at Bolton in the last few years, and in the squad that he assembled, is admirable, regardless of your view on its accuracy.

But on occasions like this, where newly promoted Carlisle United roll up their sleeves and simply out-fight, all the hyperbole, all the positive messaging, all looks rather misplaced.

Before a full-scale post-mortem is conducted on Bolton’s failures on Saturday afternoon, let it be said that Paul Simpson’s Cumbrians were quite magnificent on the day. Taking full advantage of whatever weakness Wanderers were willing to reveal, they sent a throng of 4,400 supporters come happy thanks to Jordan Gibson’s hat-trick.

And now to the serious stuff. Wins against Port Vale and Stevenage over the previous seven days had been tight, hardly convincing, but revealed a grittier side in Evatt’s team that has not always been apparent.

There was a concern it would be unsustainable, however, with Ricardo Santos, Carlos Mendes Gomes and Paris Maghoma out injured, Gethin Jones suspended, and Dion Charles and Kyle Dempsey playing with injuries that have clearly affected their form and mobility.

Evatt will have no doubt hoped his team could limp on to one more result, the break giving him chance to regather, re-energise, potentially re-think. Of course, there is a debate to be had about just ‘how’ tired a team can truly be after 12 games, particularly when their opposition had been through just as punishing a schedule. It was not an excuse sought by Josh Dacres-Cogley, for example, who bluntly claimed that the team had simply “not been good enough” on the day.

There is another, deeper, debate about recruitment, and whether it was sufficient in number or quality to live up to the automatic promotion target widely publicised by manager and board. That is one that cannot be fairly answered now, however many folk are wiling to impart their prediction.

Each time Championship football looks within reach – or that it is “coming home” to continue the analogy – a performance or result arrives that amplifies the opposite. And however optimistic or supportive you are of Bolton Wanderers, or Ian Evatt, the probability of failure over success invariably leans to the negative in football, eventually.

Within this 90 minutes there was a window where victory looked entirely possible. Jon Mellish had turned Dacres-Cogley’s cross into his own net, the Whites had enjoyed territorial advantage and at least threatened Tomas Holy’s goal, without making the goalkeeper work that hard.

For whatever reason – be it energy, confidence or gameplan – the life drained out of Bolton once a soft penalty was awarded against Dempsey for a tackle at full stretch on the edge of the box on Sean Maguire. Ironically, Joe Garner took the ball from Gibson, then saw his effort saved by Nathan Baxter.

What should have been an edifying moment proved anything but – Baxter producing a few good saves to keep Carlisle at bay before finally being beaten from the spot a minute before the break. This time Gibson held on to the ball, Eoin Toal having been punished for another very debatable handball as he attempted to clear.

Wanderers didn’t change their course in the second half, there was no recognisable concession in tactics or shape to try and shake Carlisle from what had by then become a very comfortable grip on the game. And that is a great disappointment.

Whereas against Port Vale and Stevenage, heart and passion took over to see the team through in a defensive sense, that very rarely seems to apply when asked to attack. Instead, we got the same deliberate possession football and a startling lack of ideas.

Charles did have a decent chance after pouncing on a spill from Holy but was unable to turn the ball into the net from a very tight angle. It is hard to know how the game might have changed had that goal gone in just after the interval.

Carlisle just carried on. They got a bit of luck with the second goal, Gibson’s pot shot taking a deflection before sailing past Baxter into the top corner.

Evatt had been readying Jon Dadi Bodvarsson and Dan Nlundulu at the time, and though the former’s entrance was greeted with much enthusiasm from home supporters, his impact was frustratingly – if understandably – rusty.

To further aggravate Bolton’s support, Gibson completed his hat-trick a few minutes into stoppage time.

Baxter went up to add another body in the penalty box for a corner – seemingly without instruction from his manager – and the clearance eventually left his empty goal exposed.

It was a down-note on which Wanderers will have to dwell for a fortnight, now, and a result which guarantees a mood of concern will spread right through the international break.

Clearly, it is too early to write Bolton’s automatic promotion hopes off, even though a seven-point gap has now opened up on Oxford United in second. At their best, they have proven themselves capable, but those moments have not yet been consistent enough to lend any credibility to their billing as pre-season favourites.

Comparisons with Phil Neal’s frustrating side of the early nineties continue.

“Everyone seems to know the score, they’ve seen it all before,” so the song goes.

If Wanderers do indeed get motivation from proving people wrong, they won’t have far to look for inspiration in the next couple of weeks.