LONDON, England: Bolton Wanderers boss Sam Allardyce has hailed Grenadian striker Jason Roberts as Premiership class, following his superb midweek performance for Wigan, which knocked their rivals out of the Carling Cup. Roberts – a real centre forward Roberts scored two late first-half goals against Bolton in a stunning 2-0 win, which sent Wigan into their first-ever major cup semi-finals. Coming into the game, Allardyce's men were favourites to more on to the next round and showed their dominance within the first 40-minutes of the match. However, Roberts' two goals in five minutes made the difference for the home side, and Allardyce admitted that Wigan had the man who made all the difference. "You can't take anything away from Jason Roberts," said Allardyce. "He is a Premiership centre-forward now, and he is the reason why they have won and we have lost - him more than anything else. "Not only by his finishing, but also by his general play, which he's always had even since his days at West Brom when we came up against him then. "But now he is experienced, and in working with Paul Jewell he is converting chances into goals," he added. The Grenadian too hot to stop Roberts, who scored 21 goals last season, moved his tally to six in this campaign with his double on Tuesday and the Bolton boss said he side just could not keep up with the hit-man. "He has become a major force for them, and that's what we were unable to cope with when we lost to them in the league a couple of months ago. "After that you can talk about all the chances we created that went begging, but we missed them, either by the final pass or the finish. "We came storming out in the second half and had one gilt-edged chance after another, but again by poor quality finishing - although give the keeper credit for some point-blank saves - we ended up losing. "It's very disappointing getting knocked out at this stage by our local rivals, but we have to accept it by the fact Jason Roberts did his stuff in front of goal." In the club's history, Wigan have only appeared in the last four of a competition when they went on to win the Freight Rover Trophy in 1985 and then the Auto Windscreens Shield in 1999. Roberts and his teammates are now three just matches away from winning a major cup trophy, which would give them an unpredicted place in Europe. Wigan will now play a struggling Arsenal side, which just scraped past Doncaster Rovers to reach the last four. The match is scheduled for Tuesday January 10, 2006 at the JJB Stadium. Reprinted from Caribbean Net News caribbeannetnews.com