Bolton 1 Zenit St Petersburg 0The dream lives on for Bolton and 22-year-old captain Kevin Nolan in this the club's first season in European competition.
Sam Allardyce's side moved a step closer to a place in the last 32 of the Uefa Cup after this victory at the Reebok Stadium.
With two games remaining in Group H Bolton now have a healthy total of four points. They are on the rise and so is Nolan, who scored the winner with his sixth goal of the season.
He showed against the neat and tidy Russian side why he is being touted as a future England star. Allardyce made only two changes to the team that defeated Charlton with Tal Ben Haim and Stelios Giannakopoulos replacing Radhi Jaidi and El-Hadji Diouf.
Bolton, though, had a scare in the fifth minute when Alexander Kerzhakov got into a good position inside the area - only to find the side netting with his effort.
However, they came alight in the 16th minute when Nolan picked out Kevin Davies at the back post with a glorious cross but he headed wide from close range.
Davies then latched on to a ball over the top from Gary Speed a minute later and again failed to test goalkeeper Kamil Contofalsky, his effort going over the bar. This was a good spell of pressure and Nolan made the breakthrough in the 24th minute when he scored from close range after a shot from Giannakopoulos had been parried by the Zenit goalkeeper.
In the second half, however, the Russians began to threaten and Allardyce knew his team could do with another goal to take the pressure off. Defender Ricardo Gardner's clearance was intercepted by Zenit sub Olexander Gorshkov in the 49th minute. But he snatched at his shot and failed to test Jaaskelainen, the ball clearing the bar. Zenit goalkeeper Contofalsky reacted smartly to collect a shot from Okocha before Jaaskelainen did well to get in the way of Arshavin's stoppage-time effort to preserve Bolton's victory.
BOLTON: Jaaskelainen, O'Brien, N'Gotty, Ben Haim, Gardner, Faye, Giannakopoulos, Nakata, Speed, Nolan, Davies. Subs: Walker, Jaidi, Borgetti, Okocha, Diouf, Vaz Te, Fojut.
ZENIT ST PETERSBURG: Contofalsky, Aniukov, Hagen, Skrtel, Flachbart, Vjestica, Sumulikoski, Vlasov, Denisov, Alexander Kerzhakov, Arshavin. Subs: Malafeev, Cadikovski, Gorshkov, Poskus, Korzhanov, Kozlov, Stroev.
Referee: Matteo Trefoloni (Italy)
