By Gordon Sharrock: Bolton Wanderers 3, Port Vale 1 NATIONAL Stress Awareness Day came and went. No sign of tension, not the slightest hint of pressure . . . no bother.

A goal inside five minutes settled the nerves, of course, and a second soon after eased any lingering anxieties.

But the psychologists who trooped around the country yesterday offering the captains of industry advice on stress management would still have done well to take a leaf out of Colin Todd's book.

The Wanderers boss acknowledged that, after three successive defeats, this was a must-win game. But he ignored all talk of pressure, saw home advantage as a positive rather than a negative, and simply asked his players to stand up, be counted and play the football that has become their trademark.

They responded with a controlled, cultured performance sprinkled with magic moments and adorned by three memorable goals.

And from first whistle to last, the manager was calmness personified as he stood on the touchline, encouraging and orchestrating . . . losing his composure just once when he gestured in frustration at a section of the crowd who jeered at a brief interlude of 'keep ball' in the 91st minute!

He made no comment but clearly felt it was churlish for anyone to complain after such an entertaining display under such trying circumstances.

For this was a game Wanderers had to win at almost any cost. That they did it in the manner that brought them so much success in September said everything about the character and the talent they have at their disposal.

When they hit a rhythm there isn't a team outside the Premiership that can touch them for style, which makes a run of five games without a win so damned annoying.

So damaging too, considering a game that would have been almost a top v bottom encounter had it been played in September, when it was first scheduled, had suddenly become a mid-table clash.

"We knew we had to win it," straight-talking defender Jimmy Phillips readily acknowledged. "Looking at the league table, had we lost we would only have been three or four places above the relegation zone so it was crucial from that point of view

"But I don't think we felt under any pressure. The manager just stressed that he wanted us to show our character. He was looking for individuals to show confidence and be prepared to have a go rather than go into their shells.

"The last thing he wanted was for us, as a team, to be frightened to lose and too frightened to play. And he got what he asked for.

"The fact that we scored three good goals and created other chances made it all the more important. Under the circumstances, if we had managed to scrape a 1-0 win against the run of play, we'd have accepted it. But it's good to know it was a convincing win and not a fluke."

And convincing it was too, practically from the start - when Bob Taylor collected an accurate, angled ball from Robbie Elliott and turned Dave Barnett before smashing a 20-yard right footer into the top corner - to the finish - when Gudni Bergsson flashed his second header fractionally wide of Paul Musselwhite's right hand post.

In between Wanderers gave a commanding performance that put Vale, who'd started the night level on points, very much in their place.

Per Frandsen - whose performance was outstanding and influential, on and off the ball - put the most audacious finishing touch to a move which again featured Elliott in a key role for his sixth goal of the season.

And Arnar Gunnlaugsson, whose pace, invention and improvisation had led John Rudge's defenders a merry dance eventually got his reward, netting his 12th with a delightful, curling free kick after Taylor had been unceremoniously fouled by Barnett just outside the box.

On reflection, the performance wasn't too dissimilar to Sunday's which had resulted in a 3-0 defeat by league leaders Sunderland. This time the chances were converted while the defensive errors weren't so ruthlessly punished.

The early goal made all the difference.

Having been denied a goalscoring opportunity by Paul Butler's controversial 10th minute foul at the weekend, Taylor was letting no-one, either defender or goalkeeper, stop him this time.

It's a cautionary tale to note that it took awareness and good positioning by Jussi Jaaskelainen - recalled in place of the injured Keith Branagan - to prevent Martin Foyle equalising within seconds and that Foyle would have made it a nerve-racking last 10 minutes if he'd shown the same accuracy as Peter Beadle whose free-kick a minute earlier turned out to be merely a consolation strike for the Valiants.

But the game was effectively over as a contest long before Gunnlaugsson made it 3-0. So much so that 10 minutes into the second half, in response to a particularly impressive passage of attacking play, the "We are the one and only Wanderers!" chant struck up for the first time in over a month!

Musselwhite made outstanding saves from the excellent Elliott in his third game back and from a Todd header that, met with such exquisite timing, looked every inch a goal.

The Vale keeper later frustrated Taylor with a remarkable reflex save from his powerful point-blank header so no-one in the visiting camp was complaining, least of all manager John Rudge.

"It was a disappointing night for us," he conceded. "You can't afford to give teams like Sunderland and Bolton a two-goal start.

"I still think that Bolton have it in them to be much higher up the table but we didn't put them under enough pressure. We didn't make it difficult enough for them."

Todd, who made late substitutions - tactical in the case of Scott Sellars for Jensen, enforced in the cases of Dean Holdsworth and Neil Cox for the injured Gunnlaugsson and Taylor - was understandably delighted with the win.

"It was never going to be easy coming off the back of three defeats," he suggested, "so I asked for character and mental toughness from the players and that came through.

"We won the game very comfortably. We've shown finishing of the highest order and created other chances too. We created chances against Sunderland but they just wouldn't go in for us, this time they did. We got three and it could have been five or six.

"We would have been delighted with a clean sheet but we can take a lot of credit out of the performance.

"The only concern is that we have a few injuries but I'm hoping they'll all be in the reckoning for Saturday."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.