Bolton defender Zat Knight has praised the team's fighting spirit after Saturday's 2-1 defeat at Manchester United.

Wanderers made a disastrous start at Old Trafford when Knight deflected the ball past Jussi Jaaskelainen to give United the lead after just four minutes.

But having gone in 2-0 down at half-time, the visitors orchestrated a stirring second-half revival and almost snatched a point with the kind of performance Knight hopes to see replicated in future for the entire 90 minutes.

"We had great fighting spirit and the lads have said after the game that it took the goals to go in before we reacted," Knight told the club's official website.

"We need to turn that around and be at right from the first whistle.

"We made the game hard for United as well. They went 2-0 up and probably took their foot off the pedal a little bit, and we capitalised on that."