There are few better motivational aids for a struggling team than criticism from outsiders. Bolton Wanderers seemed to resent and relish receiving less respect than was due when they challenged for Europe in recent years. So now, with negativity in ready supply, it is not surprising that picking up bad vibrations puts Kevin Nolan in a good mood.

“I quite like the fact that everyone wants us to go down,” the Bolton captain said. “It makes it so much easier for us to stick two fingers up at the end of the season when we do stay up.” Four points from safety three matches ago, Bolton are now one point above the drop zone.

“It makes me laugh when I hear people say we’re horrible and we should go down,” Nolan said. “I’m sure next year all the reporters and pundits will be upset with Bolton being in the Premier League. You’ll all be seeing horrible old Bolton again.

“When we first came came up [in 2001], we were ugly, we were nasty, we were the team you saw today, battling to remain in the Premier League. But for four years in a row we were a top-eight side. It’s gone a bit pear-shaped this season, but hopefully we can stay up, do what we did under Sam Allardyce and get ourselves back up. I don’t understand what people want. Do they expect us to come here, open up and let Tottenham beat us 4-0?”

That could have happened on Saturday anyway, but the home team did not translate their dominance into goals. Tottenham Hotspur are suffering from a sort of post-Carling Cup final credit crunch, where praise is increasingly being withheld as the results recession deepens; four successive 1-1 draws, and just two league wins in their past ten matches.

The sale of Nicolas Anelka to Chelsea in January could only look worse for Bolton if the striker scores the goal that sends his former club down at Stamford Bridge on the last day of the season. Without Anelka, no one looks like scoring.

In the absence of the suspended Kevin Davies, Grzegorz Rasiak was up front for Bolton at White Hart Lane. Not so much a lone striker as a lonely one, he hardly saw the ball and was removed at half-time. With Stelios Giannakopoulos and El-Hadji Diouf on, Bolton reinvented themselves as a team with no conventional forwards.

Still, Giannakopoulos punished Tottenham’s dozy start to the second half, but Steed Malbranque soon equalised. Nolan would presumably not mind if we dismiss Bolton’s chances of getting anything from the match against Chelsea, which means that anything less than a win at home to Sunderland on Saturday would put Bolton in a truly unattractive position.

Tottenham Hotspur (4-4-2): R Cerny 6 – A Hutton 7 (sub: T Huddlestone, 46min 5), M Dawson 6 (sub: D Bent, 53 4), J Woodgate 6, Gilberto 6 – A Lennon 6, D Zokora 7, J Jenas 6, S Malbranque 6 (sub: J O’Hara, 77) – D Berbatov 4, R Keane 6. Substitutes not used: P Robinson, T Tainio. Booked: Zokora. Next: Reading (a).

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-4-1): A Al Habsi 7 – J Samuel 6, A O’Brien 6, G Cahill 6, G Steinsson 7 – I Campo 5 (sub: S Giannakopoulos, 46 6) – K Nolan 7, G McCann 7, J O’Brien 5 (sub: D Guthrie, 20 6), M Taylor 6 – G Rasiak 4 (sub: E-H Diouf, 46 5). Substitutes not used: I Walker, J Fojut. Booked: Campo, Nolan, Samuel. Next: Sunderland (h).