Most teams that are bottom of the league and are 2-0 down at half-time would have wilted and got trampled on. Instead, Avram Grant decided to go for broke and bring on an extra forward for a midfield player and it worked.
The first half didn't go our way as David James had a few saves to make, and even got away with an early spill from Matt Taylor's free kick after Gary Cahill could only hit the post with the follow up.
Wanderers did take the lead when Matt Taylor's free kick from the wing wasn't dealt with properly and so Jack Wilshire was able to cross for Ivan Klasnic who beat Mokoena to the ball and headed past James.
The home side were 2-0 up after Vladimir Weiss was allowed to run down the wing virtually unchallenged and square the ball for Kevin "Scummer" Davies who tapped in the second goal. However, the goal should have been disallowed as Davies was certainly offside.
It's not like Pompey were particularly poor during the first half. We caused problems going forward with John Utaka shooting at Jaaskelainen and Tommy Smith striking the post after a great run.
The game completely changed in the second half when Yebda was withdrawn for Frederic Piquionne sp Pompey had four attackers on the pitch. This positive change reaped dividends but not before Taylor came close to scoring against his former club but Mokoena made an outstanding challenge just as he was about to pull the trigger.
Because I was sat in the front row in the lower section of the away end at the Reebok, I couldn't tell who it was who had pulled a goal back as the tannoy announcer wouldn't tell us who it was and due to the scuffed nature of the shot, I thought it might have been an own goal.
It turned out that it was Aruna Dindane who mishit his shot but beat Jaaskelainen because the Finn had already gone to ground. A lot of credit has to be given to Piquionne who his part in the goal too, as it was his run and cross that made the goal possible from a counter-attack that Dindane himself instigated.
The Ivorian bagged his second goal of the game and completed the fight back thanks to excellent work from John Utaka (how often do you hear anyone say that!?) He was persistent enough to win the ball back in the box from the Bolton defender and then cross for Dindane to volley in the equaliser.
After that, I thought Pompey would go on and win the game as Bolton just couldn't cope with our forwards and their passes started to go astray. However, Pompey almost threw away all of their hard work when Davies headed the ball onto the woodwork at the death but held on for a deserved draw.
I was very impressed with the character that Pompey showed yesterday and also with some of our forward play that caused Bolton's defence plenty of problems.
There would have been a few players out there that would have given Avram Grant food for thought when it comes to picking his starting eleven for the FA Cup Final too.
Utaka played as well as he has all season, Dindane was especially impressive and even Vanden Borre played pretty well. Sowah had a bit of a hard time with Weiss so it's doubtful that Grant will have him play against Joe Cole or Malouda come May 15th.
There is still plenty of time to go before that date though, and with more news coming out about more creditors being owed money that weren't on Andronikou's list you can be sure that it will be off-field issues that dominate the headlines up to one of Pompey's biggest games in its history.
Pompey Player Ratings
David James: 7 - Early spill but made up for it with some great saves afterwards.
Anthony Vanden Borre: 7 - Settled performance and will be challenging Finnan for that final spot.
Ricardo Rocha: 6 - Solid if unspectacular.
Aaron Mokoena: 7 - Could have beaten Klasnic to the header for the first, but very good otherwise.
Leonard Sowah: 5 - Inexperience showed.
Richard Hughes: 6 - Tough tackling.
Michael Brown: 6 - A typical Brown performance.
Hassan Yebda: 4 - Looked well off the pace.
Tommy Smith: 7 - Some great runs and unlucky not to score.
John Utaka: 7 - Caused Bolton plenty of problems and had a hand in both goals.
Aruna Dindane: 8 - Scored twice and was always a threat.
Substitutes
Jamie Ashdown
Joel Ward
Marc Wilson
Hayden Mullins
Papa Bouba Diop
Matt Ritchie
Frederic Piquionne (Yebda 46): 7 - Changed the complexion of the game.