WANDERERS whiz-kid Jamie Thomas has been challenged to knuckle down and show he can break through to the big time.

Whites fans have clamoured for the teenage striker to get a chance amidst the first-team’s goal drought.

But while Neil Lennon has included the Wales Under-19 international in his senior party for away days at Middlesbrough and Blackburn Rovers, also issuing him with a squad number, development coach Iain Brunskill aims to keep Thomas’s feet firmly on the floor.

Despite scoring 15 goals for David Lee’s Under-18s last season, Blackpool-born Thomas is still relatively new to the Under-21s and Brunskill believes he still has work to do before making the final step.

“He’s a good kid and he’s done well at our level – but that’s where it’s at right now,” he told The Bolton News.

“This is his first year in the Under-21s, and he only had a couple of games last year.

“He’s got to continue to develop. There’s a long way to go but he’s obviously got a knack of scoring goals, which catches everyone’s eye, and that’s terrific.

“But he knows there’s more to it than that and he’s got a good attitude.

We’ll continue working and pushing him in the right direction, giving him the right advice.

“He has to keep working hard but you never know.”

Lennon has shown he is not frightened of testing young players out in the Championship, handing a defensive debut to Rob Holding in the recent defeat at Boro and promoting the likes of Quade Taylor, Kaiyne Woolery and Alex Finney to the bench this season.

Brunskill admits the incentive of first-team football should bring out something extra in his young charges – but has warned the step up in class requires a very different skill-set.

“Where the young players are lucky here, really, is that the manager will throw them in,” he said.

“But it really is a different world in the first team. Performances go out of the window and it’s all about the end result.

“The levels were at, it’s more about the performances, and building towards what you hope will be the right result.

“The group of players we’ve got at the moment are young but they are 19, 20, and so the next step is first team. That might be with us, or out on loan with someone else.

“But they have to realise how to act as a first-team player, things like killing games off, punishing opponents’ mistakes, taking your chances. That’s what they have got to show now.”