Wanderers 2, Manchester United 2: LES Ferdinand knows better than to count his chickens after more than 20 years in the game, but even he thought he'd banked three points when he wrestled his way out of a tangle of bodies to put Wanderers just seconds away from an historic derby triumph.
Up on the television gantry another stalwart, Match of the Day's Barry Davies, barked out a definitive "He's scored the winner!".
The Reebok was in uproar. On the touchline a furious Sir Alex Ferguson was cursing the referee while Sam Allardyce watched the fourth official hold up the board that indicated two minutes of added time -- just 120 seconds to survive against the crestfallen Reds. Surely they could do it.
What happened next beggared belief. With a magnificent triumph in their grasp, Wanderers contrived to concede an equally bizarre goal and for the second time in three seasons United had silenced the Reebok by rescuing a point in injury time.
Ryan Giggs and Cristiano Ronaldo worked a short corner, Alan Smith got a head to the young winger's cross and, with David Bellion in the melee, Nicky Hunt inadvertently got the last touch past a flailing Jussi Jaaskelainen.
Ferdinand was stunned. He'd become the first player in history to score for six different Premiership clubs -- QPR, Newcastle, Spurs, West Ham and Leicester the previous five -- and was convinced he'd netted the winner.
"Everyone thought that as well," said the veteran, who is still going strong at 37.
"The emotions you go through in football ... all in the space of a minute or was it a minute and a half?"
The result says a lot about the never-say-die spirit that, down the years, has helped make Manchester United the team that they are. But the events of Saturday afternoon and the reaction of Allardyce and his players as they emerged from the dressing room, said more about how far Wanderers have progressed as a major force in the Premiership.
There was no delight in having taken a point off United, just bitter disappointment that they hadn't taken all three.
"It goes a long way to showing how far this club has come when you get a 2-2 draw with Manchester United and everyone wants to rip each other's heads off at the end," Ferdinand added, delighting in opening his Reebok account and smiling at the irony of having scored for Wanderers, rather than against them as he has so often throught his career.
"I've done some good for Bolton this time because we got a point out of it. I just wish it could have been three."
Allardyce had flashbacks to two seasons ago when -- 1-0 up and with the seconds ticking away -- United counter-attacked and, with the benefit of a dubious offside decision, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer snatched an equally dramatic equaliser to deny Wanderers a rare derby double. But this one hit him harder because the wound was self-inflicted and, quite frankly, he expects better from his team these days.
Ten points from the first five fixtures is a better return than even he could have envisaged, but the manager was scathing in his criticism of his
players for switching off, furious that both United goals had come from corners -- set plays they work on day-in, day-out.
Allardyce acknowledges that his team still has its failings and that they may never be in the same "league" as the Uniteds, Chelseas and Arsenals, but they are established and they do aspire -- as they did last season -- to compete in the top half rather than the lower reaches of the Premiership.
"It's about standards," the he said, "and our standards are growing. So it isn't a case of satisfaction that we've got a point against United, it's
about disappointment. We're much more disappointed than we would have been in the same situation two or three years ago.
"We've got to have that expectation now, we've got to have that growth. We've got to expect that, when we come up against United and match them as we did -- particularly in the second half -- and get our noses in front, we must see them off.
"That's your professionalism, that's showing you are growing, showing that you are getting better."
As disappointed as they are at this result, Wanderers really are getting better.
It might be too soon to claim they are part of a new order in a Premiership that has seen United's one-time dominance surrendered to the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea, who are, respectively, already nine and seven points clear of the Old Trafford team. But they have the qualities -- temperament as well as talent -- to suggest that finishing eighth last season was no flash in the pan.
This was, as expected, a good time to play United. With a crop of injuries from the previous week's internationals adding to their selection problems, Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Wes Brown were pressed into service while summer signing Gabriel Heinze was given his debut just a couple of days after his belated arrival and meeting his new team-mates for the first time.
Yet Ferguson was delighted to see a fluency in their play, especially in the first half, that had been missing in their four previous Premiership games. Wanderers midfield trio of Jay-Jay Okocha, Ivan Campo and Gary Speed were struggling to assert themselves in the way they did in the victory over Liverpool.
Bruno N'Gotty and Radhi Jaidi managed to keep Van Nistelrooy and Alan Smith at a safe distance and, when they were caught out, Jussi Jaaskelainen denied Paul Scholes with an excellent save. But it looked ominous when Heinze broke the deadlock just before half time.
Wanderers needed inspiration from somewhere and they got it from El-Hadji Diouf -- the misfit striker from Liverpool Allardyce has taken on loan in the hope of adding a new dimension to his attack.
The Senegal international replaced the ineffective Henrik Pedersen and first impressions were promising.
"His first touch got us excited when he got past Phil Neville and won us a free kick," the manager said. "That was an indication that we might put United under a bit of pressure and that's what happened."
Within six minutes of the restart, Kevin Nolan had poached his third Premiership goal against United -- the previous two had come in victories at
Old Trafford -- and Wanderers were back in it.
Without a shot on target in the first half, they had six in the first 15 minutes of the second, during which time United were coaxed into committing six fouls, one more than in the entire first period.
It was "game on" with Wanderers looking the more determined and the fresher side, thanks to Allardyce's decision to rest Ricardo Gardner and Stelios after their international excursions.
Kevin Davies went close, Okocha had a shot blocked and United looked rattled at the back with Mikael Silvestre looking decidedly out of sorts.
The introduction of Cristiano Ronaldo made a difference and what became a pulsating contest could have gone either way until Okocha recovered from a Neville foul (Ferguson fumed it should have been given the other way) to float a free kick into the United area where Ferdinand made a nuisance of himself before cashing in on an hilarious mix-up between Tim Howard and Silvestre.
On the balance of play, Wanderers might not have deserved all three points but they were convinced they'd got them -- as was BBC man Davies whose editor captured the emotion of the frenetic finale by keeping his commentary intact.
If only the MOTD man had been right when he announced Ferdinand's goal as "The winner!"
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