What will make things worse for Bolton fans is that Lassana Diarra's 80th minute winner was clearly offside when Kanu touched the ball through to him. I can only assume (having seen the replay) that the linesman thought that Andy O'Brien got the last touch.
In the first half, we created absolutely nothing as Defoe and Kranjcar barely touched the ball, Baros kept running into brick walls and the midfielders were closed down so quickly.
The defence were relatively solid during the first forty-five minutes barring a few half-chances for the home side and a "miss of the season" contender by Matty Taylor after he skied the ball well over the bar from close range. Even my Dog and my Nan would have scored that!
Taylor then missed another great chance at the start of the second half as he made contact with another cross from the right but he put the ball wide when it looked easier to find the target.
We did improve marginally in the second half, mainly due to Milan Baros being subbed off for Kanu who coped much better with Bolton's physical presence. However, Bolton were still playing the better football and creating the better chances and we can be thankful that David James was in outstanding form.
He denied Rasiak and Steinsson with two superb reflex saves and when it looked like he might have been beaten, Hreidarsson made a goal-line clearance to stop Cahill from scoring.
Pompey never carved an opening until the last quarter when Jaaskelainen blocked an onrushing Defoe and then Nolan blocked Papa Bouba Diop's follow up from Lassana Diarra's long range effort.
I thought that was Pompey's best chance and with Bolton still on the ascendancy I would have taken a point and got out of the Reebok there and then.
But then the goal came after Diarra's drive upfield led to some messy play in the box allowed Kanu to touch the ball to the Frenchman who was clearly offside as he lashed the ball into the net to give Pompey an unexpected and undeserved lead.
That lead still should have been cancelled out as in stoppage time there were two players unmarked in the box, it looked certain that one of them would get on the end of Stelios' cross and equalise.
I braced myself for James Brown's "I feel good" but thankfully David James pulled off one of the best reaction saves I have ever seen live to deny Tamir Cohen and to preserve all three points for Pompey.
This performance is up there with Sunderland away and Tottenham at home on the "worst performance of the season" list. Harry started with a diamond formation but has said that he tried many systems to try and get in the game but nothing really worked.
Our attacking players couldn't cope with the nature of the game whilst our midfield were getting closed down so quickly it meant our defence were getting stretched too much. We will need to play better than this next week against Preston or we will be out of the cup for sure.
The positives were that James was outstanding, as has already been said. Lucien Aubey came on for the injured Pamarot and I was impressed with his debut whilst Lassana Diarra was good once again.
The bottom line is that we got out of jail yesterday and it was all thanks to a dodgy goal and an outstanding performance from England's Number One.
Pompey Player Ratings
David James: 10 - Simply outstanding, the final save was something special.
Lauren: 6 - Stood in OK for Glen Johnson who is now a father. Congratulations Glen!
Sol Campbell: 7 - Marshalled the defence well.
Hermann Hreidarsson: 7 - Struggled with Davies but made that important goal-line clearance.
Noe Pamarot: 6 - Solid until injured.
Lassana Diarra: 7 - Didn't boss the game, but made a difference because of his class.
Papa Bouba Diop: 6 - Solid return to the side.
Richard Hughes: 6 - Worked hard.
Niko Kranjcar: 5 - Had no influence.
Milan Baros: 4 - Poor and kept running into trouble.
Jermain Defoe: 5 - Had no service.
Substitutes
Jamie Ashdown
Lucien Aubey: 7 - Impressive debut.
Arnold Mvuemba
John Utaka: 6 - Injected some pace into the game.
Kanu: 6 - Gave us some much needed strength up front.