Liverpool and Arsenal must upon Bolton Wanderers like someone does a fly that buzzes irritatingly overhead and yet proves impossible to swat. Neither Rafael Benítez nor Arsène Wenger have much time for Sam Allardyce’s team, so the sight of them moving to within three points of third place in the Barclays Premiership yesterday with a 2-1 victory over Fulham must have been particularly galling. But whatever their opinions, they should write Bolton off at their peril.

“We are hanging in there,” Allardyce said. “We have now got to see the next 11 games out. Our next target is to get to 58 points, which took us to the Uefa Cup last time.

“If we beat that points total, who knows where it will take us? Other teams will have to slip up — we know that — but we have to make sure we are in a position to take advantage of the situation if they do.” If Bolton do manage to upset the apple cart, they will have two people, in particular, to thank.

Jussi Jaaskelainen denied Fulham the most fortuitous of draws with a reflex save from Tomasz Radzinski’s thumping header in the dying seconds to emphasise why Allardyce rates him as “the best goalkeeper in the Premiership”, but it has been the presence of Nicolas Anelka that has really made the difference for Bolton. The Frenchman did not score, but his performance was so superior to anyone else’s that it would have been a crime had he finished on the losing side, although that never appeared likely even when Fulham pulled a goal back thanks to Zat Knight’s stooping header. “He was the best player on the pitch,” Allardyce said of his £8 million striker.

It was Anelka who won the penalty from which Gary Speed opened the scoring. Stelios Giannakopoulos’s deep cross was nodded down at the far post by Kevin Nolan to Anelka, who was clumsily pushed to the ground by Michael Brown before he could get a shot off.

El-Hadji Diouf ballooned the ball over from ten yards and the impressive Andranik Teymourian was thwarted by Jan Lastuvka, but the game was effectively settled within five minutes of the restart when Nolan stroked home after Giannakopoulos’s header rebounded off a post.

Fulham have lost all five of their games in the North West this season so are unlikely to relish the trips to Wigan Athletic and Everton. “Every time we come to this area the game has been over by half-time,” Chris Coleman, the Fulham manager, said. “We have changed our tactics and our travel so much I think we have been analysing it all too much. It would just be nice to get to half-time and be 0-0 or 1-0 up.”