Bolton Wanderers boss Gary Megson was delighted with his players after their 1-0 victory over West Ham.
The victory was Wanderers' first in nine league matches and allowed them to claw back two points on 17th-placed Birmingham, who drew with Everton.
However, safety is still effectively three points away as Bolton's goal difference is inferior to Blues'.
But the performance gave hope for the future and, after some recent disappointments, Megson was delighted.
"It was a terrific result, a terrific performance, given the circumstances," he said.
"There are a lot of positives to come from today and it (the result) was fully deserved.
"The players deserve great credit not just for the way they played but in the circumstances in which they played because we didn't just battle, scrap and run and fight we actually played it on quite a few occasions.
"We had maybe three kicked off the line, a couple have gone down Robert Green's throat which could have gone either side and we've had a couple of goals disallowed which were touch and go and not a massive amount came from West Ham."
West Ham manager Alan Curbishley bemoaned the second-minute loss of centre-back Anton Ferdinand with a hamstring injury for unsettling the team.
"Anton's a bit sore at the moment. Obviously it was a bit of a blow for us so early on in the game," he said. "We have been a bit patched up for most of the season and we've come here a bit patched up again and we have just got to get on with it.
"You come here, you know what to expect and with him going off we had to reshuffle and Bolton put in a terrific effort in the first 46 minutes.
"I have not seen a team work so hard. They put us under an awful lot of pressure."
