Bolton boss Ian Evatt felt his side let their standards slip as they lost at Cambridge

Evatt’s side were previously unbeaten in League One but fell to a 1-0 defeat at the Abbey Stadium courtesy of Shilow Tracey’s early goal.

Cambridge climbed above their opponents with a second successive win, and they have been beaten only once in their first five games since promotion to the third tier.

“I’m still trying to work out how we lost it,” Evatt rued after the game. “We completely controlled and dominated the entire game, but when you concede a really poor goal like that, what you invite them to do is just camp in, not even try and attack and make it very difficult.

“We tried, we huffed and puffed, we had a few chances, but it’s self-inflicted today. We haven’t been beaten by them, we’ve beaten ourselves with a moment of lack of concentration in the first half.

“Then we got frustrated with some poor officiating, we lost a bit of composure and discipline and just found it difficult to break them down. We gave them that chance by conceding a really poor goal. That gave them a leg-up in the game that gave them something to hang onto.

“Our quality in the final third, especially with crosses, was really, really poor. We got ourselves into some really good positions and just didn’t put the ball in the right areas at the right times.

“They’ve taken a chance and then we’ve invited them to hang on and bank up, which is always difficult against any team, no matter who you are.

“Our standards are higher than that. We’ve not lost many games for a long period of time, so that has to hurt and we have to be better at what we do.”

Mark Bonner acknowledged that his side had been required to defend for most of the game, but praised his Cambridge team’s display as they held on to their lead for 74 minutes.

“We had to hang on a little bit, but having said that Dimi (Mitov) has made a brilliant save one on one and that’s their only attempt on target,” Bonner said.

“Sometimes it feels horrible when you’re out there because you’re deeper and not getting the ball and they force you back.

“In the first 25 minutes we were brilliant, it was textbook how we wanted the game to look. Then you get ahead and the game changes a little bit and we struggled to get too much control.

“I think we’ve put in place a good plan, but a plan’s only good if your players execute it and the work ethic’s outstanding at the minute so it’s an brilliant result for us.

“If we have to win a few games like that, and the creation of good chances from the opposition is low, we’ll take anything at the minute. We’re finding our feet and we’ve had a good return so far.

“I think we’ll have other games that look like that this year, we’ll have to do it, but what’s important is our defensive organisation is looking really, really good.

“We want this to be a really tough place for teams to come. We’ve continued that today, and if we can keep doing that then we’ve put ourselves in a decent position. What we’ve done so far gives people some belief and confidence which is vital.”