Gary Megson heaped the praise on the Bolton fans for their magnificent support in the 3-1 home defeat to Arsenal.

The Wanderers boss explained that the vocal encouragement helped his team fight to the very end of the match, but admitted that Arsenal's first half performance ultimately swung the contest in their direction.

Despite the defeat, Megson was heartened by Wanderers' much improved performance compared to that in last weekend's defeat at Fulham.

He said: "Last week the game was different to the others this season, but that wasn't. We did exactly the same against Stoke, we did okay up at Newcastle and against West Brom, but today we set off really well and scored the first goal.

"But some of their passing and moving for a 15 minute period after that was absolutely awesome.

"They were unfortunate that they didn't score more than what they did in that period, but in the second half it was a much more even contest.

"We caused our own problems because the space between our midfield and back players was huge. Our shape wasn't right in the first half and consequently we couldn't get near to them at times.

"In the second half that was much better and hence, we had a vastly improved performance.

"We came out and contested all over the pitch and played a lot higher up, which we needed to do. A lot of the players played their best games this season and whilst we are disappointed that we didn't get anything from the game, what we need now is for everybody to recognise what we need to do to play well and therefore get results.

"I've been here ten months and that was the best response I've heard from the crowd at Bolton. It was incredible support right the way through and it kept the players going.

"It was top-class support and in the second half it matched some top-class performances from ourselves.

"You want to win every single football match you play and obviously that's not going to happen. But there is in a perverse way, a way to lose and last week wasn't that way against Fulham.

"If you are going to lose a game, you go down fighting and giving it everything you've got."