Trotting Home - Viva la Revolution

Author: Lord Kangana / Date: Monday 25 January 2010

What a difference two years makes. Lord Kangana sees hope for the future from the gloom of the past...

 

The Reebok Stadium, Saturday January the 5th 2008. FA Cup third round; Bolton Wanderers 0, Sheffield United 1. Tamir Cohen makes his debut in an uninspired and typically Megson insipid performance and defeat. Bolton go out of yet another cup without so much as a whimper. Fast forward to January 23rd 2010. Same sides, same venue, same competition, more fog, slightly smaller crowd. Premier League Bolton face Championship Sheffield United. And beat them 2-0.

So what gives? Why such a different scoreline? Is a change of manager enough to change things so radically on the pitch? There was certainly more fire in the team's belly, and a couple of well taken (almost identikit) goals from two players who may yet thrive under better management. In truth, there are still plenty of cracks that this two-goal papering exercise will not excise in the medium-term. The midfield is clearly in need of some attention, although again, Zat Knight had a reasonable game, and in tandem with a clean sheet perhaps a new centre-half may go onto Owen Coyle's back-burner of priorities.

Sheffield United brought a healthy following over the Pennines to a mist-shrouded Reebok, looking for a repeat of their victory two years ago. Bolton lined up, strangely, with Ricketts and Samuel down the left hand side, and Ivan Klasnic replacing the injury-feigner Davies. Sheffiled United just lined up. I’ve no idea how or who they normally play, so we’ll leave it at that.The early exchanges mostly favoured the away side, as both teams clunked through the gears in search of some sort of rhythm. In truth, neither found much in the way of possession or consistency in a very scrappy first half. The casual observer could in fact be forgiven for mistaking it for a Championship clash, with neither side conjuring up the much trumpeted 'FA Cup magic'. The Sheffield fans chorused ‘Premier League, you’re having a laugh’, an accurate description, even from a bunch of Yorkshiremen. Plenty of the home crowd however produced their own Harry Houdini moment and disappeared below the stands for some warmth and hospitality long before the half was over.

The second half started more brightly for the home side, with a well taken (and rare) Steinsson goal, slipped neatly through the legs of Mark Bunn. Steinsson had a good game, and the goal was just reward, and perhaps a little nudge to those who claim we can’t play football. Well at times we can, and certainly here we did. Lee, whilst a little lightweight in the midfield attritional battles, certainly proved to be a thorn in the side of the visitors. It’ll be interesting to see if we try to accommodate two wingers in the future, as this appears to be an almost heretical position to take, but from the gloom of the Megson years, Lee is one of the shining beacons. He can be a bit 'chocolate box' at times, but he can also be a pocket rocket, a bag of tricks and a box of fireworks. He could and should be central to our future plans, along with a good majority of the team yesterday. Theres a good footballing side in there just waiting to come out.

The scoreline was capped by another good goal from the forgotten multi-million man, Johan Elmander. I’ve been a fierce critic of this piece of record business, but yesterday I saw brief glimpses of what may have tempted our previous manager to part with large wodges of cash (insert amount based on your stance on the issue). He chased and harried, seemed interested at long last, showed a few good touches, and scored a finishers goal.

So maybe thats it. Maybe a new manager does breed confidence after all. Accepted and granted that we were playing a team from a division lower than us, but there seems to be a collective smile on the faces of our players thats been missing for far too long. It may well be that with the crowd off their backs they feel more freedom. But equally, maybe it’s a manager that inspires rather than admonishes, guides rather than goads. We played a bit of football yesterday and I enjoyed it. It may have been the nips of rum taken to ward off the cold and damp, but I’ve enjoyed our last three games, even though two were defeats. And perhaps thats enough to be considered success. Viva la revolution, lets keep on boinging with Owen in a bright, White, future.

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