Morecambe manager Derek Adams felt his side were the better team against Bolton Wanderers during the course of their defeat to Ian Evatt's side despite playing much of the encounter with 10 men.
Ben Jackson's goal in first half stoppage time proved to be the difference in the encounter at the Mazuma Stadium.
The hosts had earlier been reduced to 10 men when Kelvin Mellor was shown a straight red card for an incident with Oladapo Afolayan.
The win puts Bolton four points clear of the play-offs with two matches of the season left to go and can ensure promotion back to League One next weekend with victory over Exeter City.
For the Shrimps, they missed the opportunity to leapfrog Bolton in the table and remain fourth.
But Adams was pleased with what he saw from his side in the encounter and agreed with Mellor being given his marching orders, though he admitted the dismissal was a 'soft' one from his point of view.
He said: "I thought we were excellent today. Performance-wise, we gave it a right good go.
"Up to the 20 minutes we were by the far the better team on the afternoon, and even when we went down to 10 players, Bolton had possession but they never really had any cutting edge. They couldn't break us down.
"Eventually they get a goal just on half-time but the effort from the players was very, very good. I think that their application when we went down to 10 players was excellent. But the start of the game and the way we controlled the match from the point of view that Bolton like to try and play out from the back, we didn't allow them to do that.
"They kick long and then we won the ball back and I thought over the 90 minutes we were the better side and taking nothing away from Bolton - they obviously got the win, enabled by the sending off - but over the 90 minutes, I thought that the character from the players was very good.
"We're obviously disappointed because we felt that today was a great opportunity for us to go above Bolton and we could have done that.
"But we've still got the opportunity to get into second place, we've got two games to go and that opportunity to get second or third place is still within our grasp.
"From where I was standing, I thought it was a sending off. I thought it was soft, but the boy either puts his foot on top of Kelvin or does something and Kelvin swung a leg round to get him off.
"The player then gets booked and then they take him off at half-time to obviously stop him getting sent off. That changed the game. Then the injuries to Liam Gibson and Aaron Wildig caused us some more issues."
