Fulham boss Chris Coleman was glowing with praise for his Fulham side after they beat Bolton 2-1 at Craven Cottage thanks to a double from Brian McBride.

The Cottagers boss has previously insisted that his team do not have the points they deserve this season, and the Welshman was delighted that the London side claimed all three points despite conceding a late own goal from Sylvain Legwinski.

As well as reserving praise for his two-goal hero, Coleman also enthused over the performance of his whole team after masterminding the victory over The Trotters.

"I thought we were at the races today right from the first whistle, I thought we came out of the blocks, we got two great goals from Brian McBride and thought the overall performance was very good," Coleman said.

"He's a marvellous professional Brian, and he goes about his business every week and never complains.

"He's a complete professional, and he got two very good goals and his performance was worthy of that.

"I think all season we've been playing great football, attacking because we can't play any other way with the players we've got.

"Boa Morte, Malbranque, Claus Jensen, McBride, Collins John, Heidar Helguson, they're all attacking players so it's pointless me putting out a defensive system although I'm putting out the same system I did last year but last year we were called boring, 4-5-1.

"I'm delighted with the players and have been most of the season, the results haven't been there but the performances have never wavered and I was pleased again with the performance today and I thought we were worthy winners in the end."

Coleman echoed Bolton counterpart Sam Allardyce in voicing his worry at the ten yellow cards that were dealt out by referee Graham Poll over the course of the match.

Bolton received seven, as well as a red card for El Hadji Diouf, and Coleman was quick to insist that the encounter was not a bad-tempered affair.

"I think Graham's had better games to be honest," Coleman continued.

"I didn't think it was a dirty game to say the least, I thought it was a hard fought game but that's what the Premiership's all about."

Bolton manager Sam Allardyce was left rueing early defensive lapses as his side fell to a 2-1 defeat at Fulham.

Allardyce was clearly upset at conceding the two early strikes, and insisted that apart from a terrible opening spell his side more than matched the London outfit.

"We gave two stupid goals away, other than that there's very, very little between both teams and of course when we did that, give those two very sloppy goals away, Fulham were on a high," Allardyce said.

"But once we weathered that storm and overcame that we fully controlled the game, for most of it, from thereon in.

"What we couldn't do was put the ball in the back of the net like Fulham had done and when we finally did it was too little too late.

"There were plenty of opportunities for us to exert a bit more pressure on the Fulham team, particularly the back four, going into the last few minutes but like I said that goal coming in injury time was too late for us mount another attack to get something out of the match."

Expanding on the two goals, Allardyce lamented a lack of sharpness at either end for being responsible for his side's demise in the tie.

"It was hugely surprising for me more than anyone else because they were so easy to defend against," Allardyce continued.

"The first one was an ordinary cross into the box, had no great pace on it, they had only one player running into the box, which was McBride, and we had two defenders and the goalkeeper to deal with it and no-one decided to do anything and let it get tapped in the net.

"Of course the second one was just a long ball down the middle and we failed to get our head on that one, it's dropped to him, bang, and it's 2-0 down.

"At both ends today we've been poor and that's why we haven't got anything out of this game."

The Trotters saw seven players yellow carded as well as forward El Hadji Diouf being shown the red card after the final whistle, and Allardyce admitted to being surprised at the frequency with which Graham Poll brandished the book.

Although he refused to defend Diouf for the dissent that earned him a dismissal, Allardyce expressed his disappointment that he was only informed late on that the officials would be wearing microphones to contact each other.

"There was an unusual amount of yellow cards in total today, I don't know why, you'll have to ask Graham that one.

"I don't quite know why he was miked up either because none of us knew about that either before today, so I'm disappointed in that, but whether that did anything to affect his performance you'll have to ask him.

"I think [Diouf was dismissed] out of frustration by the way that the game has gone and I suppose from his point of view, and a lot of our players, a number of decisions.

"The trouble is you see, when you point the finger at a player you've got to see where it comes from.

"There's factors in the game of football that will upset and annoy people, and they are very professional in what they do, what I ask them to do is not get frustrated like that though.

"I don't accept that, even though they felt it might have gone against them hugely in the game of football we have try and control our emotions, but it was an emotional match and you will get reactions." Comments from sportinglife.