Despite rescuing a point with Mason Burstow’s stoppage time strike at Reading, wins for Lincoln City and Cardiff City mean an eight-point gap has now been opened up by the top two.
Bolton have 13 games remaining, starting with Ian Evatt’s Blackpool on Saturday, and Schumacher has urged his side to focus on preserving their own unbeaten streak.
“It’s too early to be worrying about automatic because there are a lot of games to go,” he said.
“Lincoln and Cardiff have got 14 games to go, so there’s plenty of time for them to have a blip in form. But we’re playing well. That’s all we can focus on, ourselves.
“We’ve had two really tough away games in Lincoln and Reading, two in-form teams. Reading had only lost two of the last ten. Lincoln are unbeaten in 14.
“We’ve gone away to both of them. In this game, we certainly deserve to win them. On Saturday, I thought we deserved a point.
“Just focus on ourselves. Try and be as consistent as we can be. We’re eight unbeaten now, so take the positives out of it.
“We know we’re a good team, but if we don’t have enough to get automatic, then we think we’re going to be in the mix to still get promoted anyway.”
Wanderers had chances to have taken the lead at Reading before Jack Marriott opened the scoring in the 36th minute.
Johnny Kenny, Rob Apter and George Johnston all could have got the Whites on the board before they started chasing a result.
“I think the performance deserved three points,” the head coach said. “I thought the lads played really well. The first half, we were excellent, created two or three really big chances in the opening 25 minutes and didn’t manage to take one.
“Then from their first attack, really, Marriott, who’s a man who’s bang in form, gets a sniff and he punishes us. But I thought we responded well. I said to the players at half-time, come on, we can’t be too disheartened.
“We’ve controlled that game and if we continue to pass the ball as well as we did, then we’ll create chances in the second half.
“Thankfully, we did that and we got something from the game because it was nothing less than what we deserved.”
Wanderers dominated the ball and put pressure on the Reading box in the second half without creating many clear-cut opportunities.
Schumacher said he was reluctant to be too critical of the performance as so much of the blueprint he had produced was being followed.
“It’s not just possession,” he said. “They’re playing well, they’re not just passing the ball for passing’s sake. We’ve had 65 per cent possession, we’ve had chances, 16 shots on goal. At half-time, we’ve had seven shots from inside the 18-yard box.
“We’re getting into good areas. I think we’ve been guilty of not being clinical with chances and that was the case again tonight. You ask me all the time, what can you do about that? I don’t know, that’s the answer.
“I know we can only try and get the players into good areas and explain game plans to them. But what I will say about the group is that they’re executing what we’re telling them to do. Again, it’s another game.
“We’ve come away from home, we’ve dominated. We haven’t caused too many problems from Reading and created loads of good chances ourselves. The spirit that they show and the character to keep scoring late goals is really important.
“I can’t be too despondent, but we do need to be more clinical for sure.”
Once again Wanderers found a goal in stoppage time – their 14th beyond the 80th minute this season.
“That shows really good character,” Schumacher said. “It shows good fitness levels. It shows that we have a good squad.
“We get impacts from people who come off the bench. Mason was left out at the weekend, which was a tough call. But we chose to put him in the squad today and on the bench because we thought we might need him.
“And he pops up with another goal, that’s his 10th of the season. So, we keep going and keep that spirit and keep that belief. I don’t think the players don’t believe in what we’re doing.
We’re in a good rhythm and we want that to continue and put the pressure on as best as we can.”