Clear of the relegation zone following their win against similarly threatened Wolverhampton Wanderers, Bolton can now look to climb the table and put their fears of the drop behind them.

That is the hope of Sam Ricketts after they ended a poor five-game winless and goalless run. Steve Bruce’s Sunderland are next for Owen Coyle’s men and Ricketts believes that they’ve found form and confidence to take them into comfortable mid-table territory.

"Wolves was the start of a massive run of games for us and so it was important we got off to that with a victory," said Ricketts to the club's official website, "We kept a clean sheet and obviously it was a nice finish from Zat for our goal. We should have had a few more as we created a number of good opportunities."

Goal hero Zat Knight was delighted to grab his first in a Bolton shirt albeit from six yards out. He revealved that his teammates had been ribbing him about not finding the net since his summer move. “I think that has been long overdue” said the defender. It moved his club up to 15^th in the Premier League with a small gap opening between them and the bottom three.