Owen rescues United in draw with Bolton

Michael Owen scored his 200th goal in club football as Manchester United twice came from behind to snatch a 2-2 draw against Bolton in the English Premier League on Sunday.

Former Liverpool and England star Owen glanced in a 74th-minute header to give United a share of the points at the Reebok Stadium after Bolton had twice taken the lead through Zat Knight and Martin Petrov.

The draw saw United leapfrog Arsenal into second place in the table, three points behind league leaders Chelsea.

However United boss Sir Alex Ferguson will be disappointed that his side missed an opportunity to reduce Chelsea’s lead to only point after the champions were beaten 1-0 by Manchester City on Saturday.

Bolton had taken a shock lead after six minutes when Knight punished some slack marking from United centre-half Jonny Evans to flick home a Petrov corner with the outside of his right boot.

The goal stunned a sluggish United into action, Darren Fletcher producing a fine low save from Jussi Jaaskelainen on 14 minutes after a surging run.

Yet Bolton had alarm bells ringing in the United defence shortly afterwards, when Johan Elmander just failed to get a touch on to a Kevin Davies flick which exposed the visitors’s back four once again.

By this stage Ferguson had seen enough, rising from the bench to berate his defence, which was missing the fit-again Rio Ferdinand.

United finally got back on level terms though midway through the half with a scintillating individual effort from Nani.

After gathering the ball on halfway, the Portuguese international set off on a weaving run that took him to the edge of the Bolton area, and as the home defence backed off, the winger unleashed a hard low shot past Jaaskelainen.

Yet though United controlled possession thereafter they struggled to seriously threaten, with an out-of-sorts Wayne Rooney eventually being substituted after an hour with what looked like an ankle knock.

United were then rocked by Bolton’s second goal on 67 minutes, Petrov rounding off a superb counter-attack which he had started by scoring with a rasping effort that took a big deflection off Fletcher.

Bolton should have made it 3-1 shortly afterwards, when Elmander cleverly eluded Nemanja Vidic to go clear on goal only to blaze his shot over the bar.

Wanderers were left to rue their profligacy moments later when Owen, who had replaced Fletcher, glanced in his landmark goal in club football.