Five months ago the Fratton Park boos were ringing in the ears of Kevin Davies.

The 26-year-old had left Saints for Bolton on a free transfer a few weeks earlier and suffered a forgettable return to the south coast as Pompey beat his new team 4-0.

But on Saturday he made amends by scoring the only goal, his sixth in 22 Premiership games for his new club, as Pompey's wretched away form continued.

Davies pounced in the 53rd minute, tapping a Nicky Hunt cross under the body of Shaka Hislop from six yards out.

It was a dream way to end a run of seven games without a goal and came less than three weeks after former Saints teammate Wayne Bridge put the boot into Pompey for Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

Davies admitted: "I've been stuck on five for a while. I've been playing well without getting the goals so it was a big one for me - especially as it came against the auld enemy!

"I was delighted to score. Hopefully I can go on a bit of a run now, but that was for the fans that travelled down to Portsmouth at the start of the season.

"We watched a video of that game in training, we were terrible that night, we let the fans down and that gave us a lot of motivation to win today."

Bolton's win took them into the top ten and left Harry Redknapp admitting that they are now unlikely to go down.

Davies added: "This was a massive game for us, as big as Manchester United or Arsenal. It's important that we beat teams at home, especially when they're in the bottom half of the table.

"We didn't play well in the first half and got a roasting at half-time for that but came out firing and created a lot more chances."

Bolton boss Sam Allardyce said: "Kevin has been searching for a goal for a while, he's been playing better than he did today but he got the goal so he'll go home happy."

Davies's goal fanned the flames of what had been a dull match. Yakubu saw his deflected drive strike the base of Jussi Jaaskelainen's right-hand post immediately afterwards and captains Jay Jay Okocha and Teddy Sheringham locked horns after Richard Hughes hauled down the excellent Ivan Campo in the centre circle.

Hislop had to be at his best to deny Youri Djorkaeff on more than one occasion but Alexei Smertin and Patrik Berger went close for Pompey, while Sheringham missed two good opportunities. His hat-trick against the same opponents in August now seems a long time ago.

Pompey's misery was complete when Dejan Stefanovic was sent off in injury time for foul and abusive language.

But Redknapp left the Reebok wondering how his side did not snatch a point.

He said: "We went in at half-time comfortable at 0-0, there was no danger. We were sloppy at the start of the second half, we tried to play our way out of trouble and got caught in possession but in the end it was amazing that we didn't score an equaliser in the last half hour."

Wolves' win against Manchester United and Tottenham's victory against Liverpool helped make it a bad day all round for Redknapp, who added: "I think it's now between six or seven clubs. Tottenham and Bolton should be all right and who is to say that Wolves can't beat Liverpool this week after beating Manchester United?"

Redknapp named teenage midfielder Anthony Pulis, the son of former Pompey boss Tony, as a substitute on Saturday and now has two weeks to add to his squad before the transfer window closes.

He added: "We're not doing badly bearing in mind I'm struggling to put a team out. I've had to have an 18-year-old who has never been near the first team on the bench, but we've won our last three home games.

"What I need are three more players otherwise we will be struggling, but no Premiership club is going to do us any favours in terms of loaning players."