Gary Cahill was left to curse a fantastic save from Martin Fulop at the end of Saturday's scoreless draw with Sunderland, an opportunity that the big defender felt had secured a last gasp victory for his team.

Instead, Cahill's close-range header was finger-tipped around the post in stoppage time as Sunderland held on for a point despite a late second half rally by Bolton.

Speaking after the full-time whistle, Cahill explained: "It was a great save right at the end. It was difficult to get that much power, but even so, I was happy with the header and it's really come off the end of his fingers - I had a great view of it. I was devastated and I don't know how it didn't go in.

"At the end of the day, it's another good point and with two games left we are on the 40 point mark so I suppose we have to be pleased with that."

In a game of two halves, Wanderers came out with more purpose after the half-time interval and Cahill believes the performance in the second 45 minutes, along with another clean sheet, are positives to reflect on from the weekend's outing.

He added: "For me, if we had started the first half like we did the second half, then we would have won that game comfortably. We were slow to start, to say the least, and after a bit of a hairdryer we came out in the second half and changed, but it shouldn't take that push in the back.

"Credit to them because their movement was good and both their wingers kept cutting in and it caused us a lot of problems early on.

"We were reminded by the manager that we started far too slow and for whatever reason that is, I have no idea. It can be too late and probably we were fortunate to come in at nil-nil at half-time.

"If you are going to look for positives from the game then it is the second half performance because we had a right good go and we were unlucky at the end not to come out with the win.

"It's another clean sheet and we haven't really had enough of them this season, and you are always in with a chance when you haven't conceded, like you saw at the end."