Posh kids hit rich form while Bolton live on the breadline | Ben Fisher

A rousing display from Grant McCann’s side showed the value of youth but Sunday’s chastening defeat may soon be the least of Bolton’s concerns

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Bolton Wanderers may have already eclipsed last season’s miserly tally of 30 points but on this weekend’s evidence they have plenty of work to do if they are to return to the Championship at the first time of asking.

Phil Parkinson, the Bolton manager, had warned his players about basking in their promising start but they did just that in a 1-0 defeat at Peterborough United on Sunday, a game they went into after five league wins on the bounce. Among supporters, there is anything but hubris. “The fact we are still here is the main thing,” said one of the 480 travelling supporters at London Road, before Bolton trudged off the team coach on arrival.

Bolton have been through the mill and back. Nine years ago this week travelling fans made the trip to Germany, where they witnessed Ricardo Gardner open the scoring against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena. On Sunday fans travelled down the A1 to tackle Peterborough in League One. A lot has happened in those nine years: five managers, two relegations, all while haemorrhaging money.

There is still a distinct concern over the financial predicament of the club following the takeover by the consortium owned by Ken Anderson, a former football agent, and fronted by the former Bolton striker Dean Holdsworth, in March. The club are yet to submit their accounts for the last financial year (2015). Companies House has started enforcement action against the club, who could face criminal action if they do not do so by the end of the month. Anderson stated in a BBC interview that the accounts “are not going to be pleasant reading”.

Bolton’s squad were much changed from the last time the sides had met in Cambridgeshire, when they came out on the losing end of a nine-goal thriller four years ago. Following relegation and a season of upheaval, Wanderers trimmed their exhaustive wage bill by cutting more than 20 professionals off their books. One of those on more modest wages, Rob Holding, joined Arsenal.

Peterborough took victory this time, too, courtesy of a peach from the right-back Michael Smith. Bolton were poor and put in the kind of away performance fans were beginning to forget about, the club having gone 495 days without a win on the road until August.

“I’ve guarded against complacency – we’ve been second in the league for a while and people start talking about going up,” Parkinson said. “We looked lacklustre, we looked off the pace and started poorly. We will look at it, watch the game back and talk to the players to see if the preparation was not quite right or whatever.”

Bolton’s spine is homegrown and the club’s financial woes have at least enabled some young talent to blossom through their Category Two academy, although high-earners Darren Pratley, Jay Spearing and Ben Amos, on loan at Cardiff City, remain on the books.

The midfielder Josh Vela, born in Salford, has been at the club since under-9s level, while another Mancunian and academy graduate, the striker Zach Clough, – described by former manager Neil Lennon as a “street kid” – has been with them since the age of eight. Both are now prized assets who have attracted interest from elsewhere. Clough was tamed throughout here but showed a few touches of class, neatly turning his defender at one point before unleashing at goal.

Other academy youngsters Alex Finney, Will Jaaskelainen (the son of the former Bolton goalkeeper Jussi) and Alex Samizadeh, the Iranian striker who posted a Vine of a sublime piece of skill on Wednesday, are other reasons to be cheerful.

Peterborough’s 17-year-old Leonardo da Silva Lopes, already the subject of interest of scouts from Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, was the only youngster to shine in front of the cameras. The Portuguese, noticed by Darren Ferguson three years ago, was boisterous in the middle of the park and almost pulled off an audacious lob on the goalkeeper Ben Alnwick from 30 yards. Later he did the dirty work, nicking the ball off of Sammy Ameobi to rally an attack before leaving Clough pirouetting after him.

Peterborough’s starting lineup had an average age of 23.4 and they were far hungrier and more dynamic than the visitors. Shaquile Coulthirst and Marcus Maddison, who was poached from non-league Gateshead and now looks another gem, also excelled.

“At 17 years of age, to have his maturity and temperament, the boy’s going to have an unbelievable future,” the Peterborough manager, Grant McCann, said of Lopes. “He just wants to learn, he comes in before anybody else, watching his clips at half eight in the morning. He’s got a top future.”

• Carlisle United’s 15-match unbeaten league run came to an abrupt end at Newport County but for Nicky Adams, another impressive record was over. The 30-year-old former Northampton Town midfielder tasted defeat for the first time in 33 league matches, since Portsmouth beat his former club in December last year. “We take it on the chin. I think we’ll be a very dangerous animal now,” the Carlisle manager, Keith Curle, said of the result. “We’ve been beaten in a game of football and we have to accept that’s going to happen. The important thing now is that we need to react. A lot of good work has gone into the start of the season and that won’t change.”

• The Championship returns on Friday following the international break, with Brighton at home to Aston Villa, a game that will be televised by Sky Sports. Doubtless Scott Minto or Peter Beagrie – perhaps both – will be in attendance, but Ian Holloway’s fierce Bristolian accent is unlikely to be on display after being appointed the QPR manager – for the second time. It does seem a slightly odd appointment move by QPR, given what looked to be their attempt to move away from the archetypal Mr Motivator – see Harry Redknapp and Neil Warnock – by bringing Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink to the club. When you look up Holloway’s name, unsurprisingly the word “quotes” follows as a suggested search. Now is a apt time to republish one of his best. “I am a football manager. I can’t see into the future. Last year I thought I was going to Cornwall on my holidays but I ended up going to Lyme Regis,” Holloway once said. Anyway, Holloway believes his time serving as a pundit will help him get QPR moving in the right direction. “The amount of work that goes into an outside broadcast is scary,” the 53-year-old said. “It taught me about how the structure is so important in getting your product right – the relationship between producer and director is so crucial. I’ll use that experience to help develop my working relationship with Les [Ferdinand].”

• Just how long will Luke Williams remain the Swindon Town coach? They coasted to a 3-0 victory on Saturday against Charlton but only after Tim Sherwood, named director of football in midweek, had picked the starting lineup and then given the team talk. “Tim felt that was the strongest side he could put on the pitch and it proved correct,” said Williams, who was given a five-year contract in March. Lee Power, the Swindon chairman, described Williams at the time as the best coach he had seen “in 25 years in football”. Swindon remain perilously close to the League One relegation zone despite their first win in five matches but whether Williams’s job is safe or not, Sherwood’s arrival has certainly made an instant impact.