Ricketts maintains Bolton's run

Bolton Wanderers 1 Middlesbrough

On the night when the cynics expected their inexorable slide down the Premiership table to begin, Bolton clung onto their unlikely role as leaders thanks to a first-half goal from Michael Ricketts.

If their opening day victory at Leicester was the sort of charitable welcome that they could hardly have dreamt about, this was more the gritty reality of competing at this level, especially since it was Bolton's poor home form that almost cost them their place in the sun this season.

But, faced with a Middlesbrough side desperate to put matters right after their own disastrous start on Saturday, Bolton showed the qualities that could keep them afloat, if not necessarily aloft in their current exalted position.

Ricketts, so often used as a substitute despite his prolific scoring last season, looks a better player at this level, terrorising Leicester on Saturday and producing the crucial moment last night.

He might already have scored from a measured through-ball from the excellent Simon Charlton but for Gareth Southgate's intervention. However, there was no denying him six minutes before half-time. Kevin Nolan dispossessed Paul Ince and fed Ricketts. The striker seemed to have passed the buck to Bo Hansen, at a worse angle, who passed it straight back to him. This time Ricketts was decisive, beating Mark Schwarzer from 12 yards out.

Bolton had shown a coherent pattern, with Hansen and Ricardo Gardner quick to support Ricketts on the flanks and Nolan, Per Frandsen and Paul Warhurst compact and combative in the middle.

Boro, considering the hiding they took from Arsenal, had looked reasonably confident on the ball as well, but came to rely more and more on the aerial route to try to beat a defence deprived again by injury of the extra inches of Colin Hendry.

The closest they were to come was when Brian Deane had a header cleared off the line immediately after Ricketts' goal. Bolton should have made it safe nine minutes after the break when Hansen rightly buried his head in his hands after shooting wide when he was put through by Frandsen.

Bolton almost surrendered the initiative to Boro in the latter stages, a better Premiership side than Steve McLaren's would have punished.

As it was, there was just one genuinely nervous moment, when Anthony Barness allowed Hamilton Ricard to slip past him and put a header just wide.

"I was very encouraged by our overall performance," insisted McLaren. "It's just that the final cutting edge, that ruthlessness in front of goal let us down."

McLaren had some veiled criticism of Bolton's willingness to "get 11 men behind the ball", but Frandsen, a driving force in attack and defence, was making no apologies for that.

"It's difficult to play against us," he said. "That is the message that is starting to filter down into the Premiership."

Bolton Wanderers (4-5-1): Jaaskelainen 6; Barness 5, Bergsson 7, Whitlow 6, Charlton 8; Hansen 6, Frandsen 7, Warhurst 7 (Southall 5, 71), Nolan 7 (Marshall, 89), Gardner 6; Ricketts 7 (Holdsworth, 75). Substitutes not used: Banks (gk), Pedersen.

Middlesbrough (3-5-2): Schwarzer 5; Ehiogu 5, Southgate 7, Cooper 5; Fleming 6, Greening 4, Ince 7, Mustoe 5, Job 4; Ricard 6 (Windass, 79), Deane 6. Substitutes not used: Crossley (gk), Vickers, Okon, Wilson.

Referee: S Dunn (Bristol) 5.