It was never going to be pretty and that's the way it turned out with Manchester City hardly enhancing their chances of European football next season.
The Intertoto Cup looks Sven Goran Eriksson's best option, after talk of Champions League action just a month ago.
In contrast, Bolton are staring at the Premier League trapdoor after again failing to resolve their goalscoring problems.
Full-back Gretar Steinsson hit the post early on from an El Hadji Diouf corner and Kevin Davies almost poached a late winner, only to see Martin Petrov clear off the line.
City also had their moments, but Ali Al-Habsi didn't have much to do to keep his first ever Premier League clean sheet.
Wanderers had to re-shuffle their defence at half-time as full-back Ricardo Gardner suffered a rib injury just before the break.
Gary Megson, gradually losing his cult status reputation with the Wanderers fans, asked for a frenzied performance and his team answered his plea from the kick-off.
Diouf forced Joe Hart into a first-minute stop and the Senegal star was his team's best player in the opening exchanges.
Spaniard Ivan Campo attempted an optimistic shot as Wanderers strove for their first league win since beating Reading 2-1.
City, who won their last outing against Spurs, again took time to settle and Stephen Ireland finally managed a worthwhile shot after 17 minutes.
Kevin Nolan, back in the side after injury forced him to miss the humiliating defeat at Wigan, was booked for a bad challenge on Croatian Vedran Corluka.
Referee Andre Marriner showed leniency when a red card wouldn't have been out of place.
And Corluka certainly didn't deserve the subsequent barracking from the home fans in a disappointingly low crowd of 22, 633.
The challenges continued to fly in, but Mr Marriner kept his cards in his pocket for the rest of the game.
The arrival of Elano in anything but Brazilian style weather perked up the Blues.
However, Elano was guilty of going for goal when Petrov was better positioned and Al-Habsi made a comfortable stop.
Icelander Steinsson was proving a menace from set-pieces while Javier Garrido blocked a header from the hard-working Davies.
Bolton had the better openings and Diouf should have done better after racing onto Davies' flick, Hart came to City's rescue.
Benjani nearly snatched all three points in the 88th minute, but the ex-Portsmouth man headed over from Corluka's centre.
Then came Davies' injury- time near miss, but City hung on and Bolton wondered what might have been, especially with Arsenal next up at the Reebok.