GEORGE Johnston wants to finish 2024 with a flourish and cheer up some of the glum faces at Wanderers.

Mansfield Town provide the opposition on Tuesday night, in what will be the first of six league games remaining in a calendar year that has not been kind to the Whites.

Ian Evatt’s side sit eighth in the table but missed out on a chance to hop into the play-off positions after dropping two points at Cambridge United in midweek.

Disappointment has been the prevalent feeling since the start of the season and many supporters have voiced their discontent. Johnston, who admits the players have also been frustrated with some of their inconsistency, insists there is time to put things right.

He told The Bolton News: “The festive period is massive every year but especially in the position we’re in, we can either kick on and get to where we want to be by the end of it, or this can continue, and I know which one I’d pick. As disappointed as everyone in the dressing room is about dropping points against Cambridge, I know they firmly want to climb that table.

“Maybe we did lose sight of the form we’d had over the past few weeks because it didn’t feel like that, and that was down to our performances on the pitch. Sometimes you do have to win ugly but it would be nice to put a few more displays that can sent the supporters home happier and then we can all feel better about the way it’s going.

“We know there is room for improvement.”

One reason for optimism at Wanderers is the impending return of a few injured players, including defenders Eoin Toal and Chris Forino, midfielder Kyle Dempsey and the versatile Carlos Mendes Gomes over the course of December.

Johnston is hopeful that extra options can make a positive impact at a traditionally pivotal time of the year.

“Over the last week I thought in training there was a big difference in the numbers. Sometimes you have the younger lads joining in to make up the numbers but we haven’t needed them, we had quite a healthy group.

“There are some big players coming back – Toally, Demps – big characters and personalities and that can only benefit us for the games we have got coming up.”

Wanderers will be without George Thomason for the Mansfield game, the Bolton captain picking up a fifth yellow card of the season in the game at Cambridge.

Evatt brought his players in to train over the weekend in preparation for the game but feels Thomason was unlucky to go into ref Paul Howard’s book so early in the game at the Abbey Stadium.

“It was the first tackle of the game and he was on his feet, it was from behind, and maybe one of those where his reputation gets the better of him and of the referee on that,” he said.

“Just after that there was a tackle from behind on Gethin Jones where he was left on the floor, which was more of a yellow card than that one for me but George gets punished and we have to deal with it now.”