Gary Rowell: It was Sunderland, not Bolton, that looked like the team cobbled together

As it was, we were lucky only two points were dropped and not three because it took an injury time penalty to prevent the embarrassment of losing to a team that started the day on -10 points.

McGeady’s equaliser must have been bitter-sweet for the magnificent turn out of travelling fans because how do you celebrate a goal when you know it still wasn’t anywhere near enough.

Too little, too late is an understatement.

If Sunderland had got that equaliser 15 minutes earlier who knows what might have happened but really that is grasping at straws.

Sunderland had 90 minutes to beat a team who have been hammered for most of the season, then in the last week or so cobbled together a team with last minute signings but Sunderland failed to do so and failed miserably.

Bolton manager Keith Hill deserves huge credit and it just shows how hard work, desire and organisation can succeed even during a season-long crisis and with just a couple of weeks to come up with a system to accommodate so many new faces who probably wouldn’t recognise each other if they met on the street but he did it.

Sunderland, on the other hand didn’t look organised, and they were the team that looked like they had just been introduced to each other as the pressure of another winnable game slipping away seemed to get to them.

Sunderland have thrown away four points this past week but if there is one glimmer of hope it is somehow we are just three points off an automatic promotion spot.