IAN Evatt has explained why Aaron Morley was not present in the Wanderers squad at Exeter City.

The midfielder missed the game to stay with his pregnant partner, Emily, who was due to give birth to their first child.

The Bolton boss explained: “His partner is over-due labour and being six hours away from Bolton is a long way in case anything happened, and anything is imminent.

“Football is a wonderful thing, we all love it to pieces, but family always comes first and he needed to be with his partner. Having his first child is a really important moment and we wish him well.

“As we are standing here right now, I don’t know if anything has progressed but he it was definitely important that he stayed at home and didn’t come away.”

Wanderers made three changes to the side that had drawn against Barnsley, sticking with the back five which finished at Oakwell.

That mean Gethin Jones moving to right wing-back, Jack Iredale coming into the centre of defence and Randell Williams replacing Nat Ogbeta on the left.

Josh Dacres-Cogley – who is the only Bolton player to top 50 hours of football this season – was dropped to the bench.

Explaining his reasoning for the changes, Evatt said: “I thought Geth was excellent second half at Barnsley and really good again today at wing-back, he put in some god crosses, put in some really powerful running.

“Cogs has played a lot of football, more than anyone else, and he needs sometimes to be refreshed.

“Jack Iredale has done well when he played recently and Randell was also ready for more minutes again. We are getting him back now to where we think he can be.

“We have three very good left wing-backs with Zac Ashworth and Nat Ogbeta as well, so moving forward we’ll look at what the opposition looks like and pair it to the personnel we pick.”