Although Bolton had the advantage of an away goal the Premier League side left it very late to settle the nerves of the fans who came to watch UEFA Cup football at the Reebok Stadium.

Manager Sammy Lee made the decision to leave Nicholas Anelka and El-Hadji Diouf on the substitute’s bench and consequently Bolton found themselves wanting in their limited attack. Chances were being created, but a quality final touch was elusive to the forwards.

In an unremarkable first half the Macedonian team had shown enough to Lee to have him bring on Stelios Giannakopoulos after the break to inject some pace into the attack and he wasted little time in creating problems for the visiting defense. Still the goal would not come though and as time passed by, the thought of Rabotnicki sneaking a match winning goal must have been praying on Lee’s mind.

Eventually Anelka was sent into the attack at the expense of misfiring Davies on 66 and immediately showed what Bolton had been lacking as he headed in the winning goal on 68 after a deep cross from Giannakopoulos saw him rise above the Rabotnicki defense.

The Bolton goal was very rarely threatened during the match and this continued after the goal. There was time however for Anelka to show his class as he threatened to add to the scoring and leave the home fans wondering why he had not been in the starting line up.

Ultimately the game revolved around who would take their chances on the night and luckily for Bolton they had the quality in Anelka which made the difference between the two teams. As Rabotnicki manager Dragoljub Bekvalac said after the match Bolton took their chances while we didn’t.