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Nottingham Forest halted a run of four consecutive draws with an easy win that heaped more misery on 10-man Bolton.

Visiting keeper Ben Amos was sent off early on for fouling Jamie Ward in the box and Nelson Oliveira converted the penalty to set the hosts on their way.

Teenager Oliver Burke's header from Jamie Ward's right-wing cross doubled the Reds' first-half advantage.

Ward got his reward late on after going close on several occasions with a left-foot shot from inside the box.

The early red card left Bolton with a near-impossible task as they spent most of the game defending and registered just one shot on target during the 90 minutes, when Gary Madine's effort was easily saved by Dorus de Vries.

Neil Lennon's Trotters were indebted to substitute keeper Paul Rachubka, who pulled off some fine saves, including twice denying the busy Ward.

Former Derby and Chesterfield man Ward also struck the crossbar from 30 yards out with a spectacular drive late in the first half, and then shot just wide shortly after the break following a neat exchange of passes with Ben Osborn.

Bolton, the Championship's bottom club and heavily in debt that has seen them the subject of a winding-up petition, have now won just once in their last 22 games - a 1-0 home win over Blackburn on 28 December.

For Forest it was a 10th Championship game without a defeat, although this was only their fourth victory during that run.

Nottingham Forest manager Dougie Freedman:

"I am very happy because it was a fantastic performance. We moved the ball with great intensity and scored goals.

"This was a difficult match because we were up against a wounded animal. But we got the job done.

"We made a perfect start. We wanted to make sure they knew they were in a game.

"We had great movement, great play from our wide players and some great passing, all of which led to the penalty."

Bolton Wanderers boss Neil Lennon:

"We have to keep going, we have to keep believing. We have a seven-point gap to close and that is not insurmountable - but we have to start winning games.

"This is why we are bottom of the league, because we cannot string two performances together.

"We felt we could get something out of this game, but we gave ourselves a mountain to climb. Obviously we lost the keeper to a red card, so we were quickly down to 10 men.

"We never gave ourselves a chance; we never had any momentum."