Ian Evatt felt Wanderers deserved their margin of victory as they cruised into the quarter-finals of the Papa Johns Trophy.
All four of Wanderers’ goals came in the second half as Evatt’s men struck twice in injury-time to wrap up a convincing 4-0 win over Manchester United’s youngsters.
But after creating chances throughout the 90 minutes at a freezing University of Bolton Stadium – and recording 30 goal attempts – the final scoreline certainly didn’t flatter the Whites as they moved into the last eight of the competition for the first time.
“Credit to them. They carried on playing the way they play in PL2. It was a good challenge,” said Evatt.
“There was one real crisp move from them in the first half with three passes and it could have resulted in a goal for them.
“But other than that I thought we were dominant and I think a convincing win was the right result.
“It could have been more, but the most important thing is we took the chances right at the end and got ourselves in the next round.
“The most important thing about these types of games when you’re playing against U21 teams is your energy and your attitude and I thought our application, energy and attitude was first-class. It was a good performance.”
Goals from Dapo Afolayan, Aaron Morley, Amadou Bakayoko and Conor Bradley booked Wanderers’ place in the quarter-finals, which are due to be played in the week commencing 9 January.
But the Whites face five key League One games before then, starting with Saturday’s visit of Exeter City.
And Evatt insists that’s where the focus will now lie as his side aims to stay in the top six after bouncing back from last Saturday’s 3-2 loss at Shrewsbury Town when they shipped two late goals to suffer a first defeat in five games.
“Any chance and opportunity you get to potentially play at Wembley you should take it with both hands,” added the Wanderers’ boss.
“Now the players are only two games from Wembley so let’s see, but we can park that until after the Christmas period and concentrate on the league.
“There were some harsh words said yesterday at Lostock because we had control of that game on Saturday.
“The two set-plays and the way we defended them wasn’t acceptable.
“There were some home truths told. For large periods of that game we were really comfortable and the performance was okay.
“They wanted to put it right tonight. We had to make sure we were on it because they are a team that challenge you and have had some good results in this competition. I was delighted with the way we went about it.”
The only concern for Wanderers was an injury to stand-in skipper Geth Jones, who will have a gluteal muscle issue assessed.
The return to action of Will Aimson was therefore timely should Jones join captain and defensive sidekick Ricardo Almeida Santos on the sidelines, while midfielder Kyle Dempsey could also be fit re-join the squad against Exeter with the midfielder due to resume full training on Thursday.