Nolan's rant brings Bolton back to life

"I'm just waiting to have a few words with the so-called experts who had us down and out," said Nolan.

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"It's a massive win but after 10 minutes I had a go at my team-mates.We needed a bit of a shake-up. It probably didn't need me ranting and raving, but I thought: "Let's see if I can inject a bit of life".

"We stuck in there and when you're down that's what you have to do. We have fantastic spirit here. We are together and it was magnificent."

It says something that Nolan believes staying up would be the finest achievement of his time at the Reebok — better than two seventh-placed finishes and UEFA Cup runs.

"That's bearing in mind we lost our manager, sold our top scorer (Nicolas Anelka), lost our goalkeeper (Antti Niemi) and our centre forward (Kevin Davies) was out against Middlesbrough," he added.

"We lost Sam Allardyce, you then have another manager (Sammy Lee) who had different ways and it didn't work out and the board decided to change. Gary Megson has come in and he has got different methods.

"We have found it so hard. We've gone from being one of the most stable clubs in the country to one of swap and change in such a short time."

Victory was as much down to the reflexes of Ali Al Habsi as it was to the winning goal from Gavin McCann, his first for the club. The decider came on the hour, after Bolton had battered Middlesbrough in the same manner they had been pummelled themselves in the opening 20 minutes.

Al Habsi repeatedly made critical saves and Megson said: "The ones he made in the first 20 minutes were exceptional. He accepts he is on a learning curve and even today he has done some really good things but some silly things as well through lack of experience, such as whacking it up field when it didn't need to go there so quickly and throwing the ball out when we were geared for the kick. He'll learn."

Al Habsi had fighters in front of him. Gary Cahill, Grzegorz Rasiak and Tamir Cohen were all bloodied in battle and the latter pair were forced off.

How Boro boss Gareth Southgate could do with such steel. There is at least an acceptance that his team, who show breathtaking flashes of class, are mentally weak; that if the game is not going in their favour, they forget how to play.

"I don't know if it's softness, but we've got to be tougher mentally,' he said. 'If you miss chances, you've got to say: "OK, we get a 0-0 out of the game". You respond in the right way, but we didn't.

"It calls for character when you're playing a team like Bolton. You need that character for 90 minutes and we didn't have the answers when they scored.

"The team probably don't believe in themselves enough because we've had a lot of knocks and you've got to keep bouncing back from them. That takes its toll."

Relegation is still possible for Middlesbrough and captain Emanuel Pogatetz said: "It's a bit close for comfort. We could have put the season to bed and enjoyed the last couple of games. Now all the pressure is on us again."