"I'm happy with the result and the performance, I thought we played very well," said Hodgson.
"I've been a little bit unhappy with the last two results, although not the last two performances.
"We dealt with Bolton's long-ball game reasonably well and restricted their chances to an absolute minimum, and then our passing play created chances and we converted three of them.
"We conceded a goal in first-half injury time and that could have been a fatal blow to our confidence, but the players took it in their stride.
"You've got to earn the right to play your football but, when you do get the ball, there's no need for you necessarily to play the ball long. You can play it through the midfield and that's what we tried to do today."