JOSH Sheehan has been challenged to take out his international frustrations on League One.

The Wanderers playmaker could only watch on from the bench as Wales missed out on a chance of automatic qualification for next summer’s Euro 2024 tournament and will now have to face Finland in the play-off semi-final before meeting Poland or Estonia to confirm their place.

The lack of playing time may be viewed as a positive for Bolton, who have relied on him heavily this season.

Ian Evatt admits his lack of game time in the games against Armenia and Turkey has presented a few issues for Sheehan but that he has been pleased with the player’s attitude since his return to Lostock.

“These international camps it isn’t easy to monitor the training load, but I don’t think he has done a great deal,” the manager explained. “It is a strange scenario where they are going away for a short period of time and most of it is focussed on the starting 11, so the ones outside kind of become passengers.

“We have made sure that Josh had programmes to follow and he has been doing that as best he can, on his own, in the afternoon, post-training.

“We are excited to have him back. He looks in a good place, though obviously there is some frustration that Wales didn’t qualify automatically and that he didn’t get on the pitch.

“But he wants to come back here and show us what he can do, and we have seen so far this season that he has been fantastic.”

Wanderers have won one and lost one game after international breaks so far this season – their performances in each case viewed as somewhat inconsistent. But Evatt is confident there is no cause for concern this time around.

“Reading away, we should have been four-up at half time and I still can’t believe we lost that one,” he said.

“The next one, I thought we were really good against Northampton in the first half, should have been out of sight. Second half we took our foot off the gas and probably weren’t as good but I don’t think there is too much in that.

“I don’t think there is a concerning trend – and I hope by 5pm on Saturday you’re not telling me there is, but I think at the moment I don’t see any signs of rustiness, I think we are ready to go.”

After winning seven games on the spin, Wanderers go in search on an eighth for the first time since 1990. The break came at a good time, argues Evatt, who hopes momentum can be continued against Exeter tomorrow afternoon.

“You think about the games we had, really physical ones, travelling distance away from home to Wycombe and Charlton, Shrewsbury, gruelling games.

“I don’t think it is a bad thing that the players have had the opportunity to rest and recover. I can see the benefit in the players already from that.

“We have had a reset and physically they have looked good from that, so fingers crossed we can take that into Saturday.”

Will Forrester will be back in contention and Kyle Dempsey could be fit enough for a place on the bench, which leaves Zac Ashworth (calf) and George Johnston (knee) as the only players not currently available to the Wanderers boss for what is a traditionally defining period of the season.

“We are getting players back at the right time, big players fit and healthy again, which is great,” he said. “It gives me headaches and selection problems but the reason why we recruited the squad we did is to have these problems. When everyone is fit and healthy we have a good squad of players and we’ll have to utilise it over the next month or so.”