Bolton - 2 Newcastle Utd - 1:Sam Allardyce and Glenn Roeder exchanged the most cursory of handshakes at the final whistle, their fingers barely touching before each turned sharply away.
While Roeder has not forgotten that Bolton's manager was vociferous in his insistence that he should not be allowed to take charge of Newcastle last summer because of his lack of the Pro-Licence qualification, informed rumour suggests Allardyce rather fancied the job himself.
That was not to be, but life is hardly disappointing at the Reebok right now - particularly with Europe beckoning. This fourth successive Premiership victory propelled Bolton into a Champions League position, and Allardyce was not too modest to discount suggestions that they might yet finish in the top four.
"We've given ourselves an outside chance of Champions League football," said Allardyce, whose side were outclassed in the first half but nevertheless rallied courtesy of two scruffy goals.
Buoyed by Peter Ramage's equaliser, Bolton claimed the points thanks to Nicolas Anelka's seventh goal of the season. A far-post tap-in, it originated with a hallmark long throw by Ivan Campo which was flicked on by Kevin Davies before reaching the scorer via El Hadji Diouf.
Pavel Srnicek, making his first start for Newcastle in nine years after coming out of semi-retirement on a short-term contract, and then seeing Shay Given and Steve Harper suffer groin injuries, had had little to do, but Anelka and Diouf did cause the otherwise inexperienced defence numerous second-half problems.
It is hard to warm to Diouf, but some of his disorientating interchanges with Anelka were extremely clever and helped raise the tone of Bolton's performance.
That said, their cause was aided by Newcastle's deployment of teenage full-backs in the debut-making David Edgar and the novice Paul Huntington.
Roeder described the concession of the winner as "a shocker". Ditto Ramage's inadvertent first-half equaliser. Deriving from Campo's powerful header into the area, it featured a spot of gamesmanship - the Newcastle defender was shoved in the back by Kevin Nolan - and a horrible misunderstanding between Ramage and a suddenly hesitant Srnicek, who came late, almost colliding with his team-mate in the process. Pushed into it, Ramage headed into his net.
Obafemi Martins and Kieron Dyer impressed early on and the latter gave Newcastle the lead when Davies missed a header and Dyer nipped in to gain control and accelerate round Tal Ben Haim before before shooting past Jussi Jaaskelainen.
Guardian Service
