We gave 100 people 100 seconds to come up with the names of as many Bolton Wanderers forwards as they could.
Afternoon to you. And a good afternoon to you.
That is how the hosts of seminal afternoon game show ‘Pointless’ greet each other, even though they record three shows a day. Every time I watch it I can’t quite get my head around how switching the audience into different chairs and having a quick change of your suit would make you think it was a different day. Or maybe I’m just starting to get too pedantic.
These kind of thoughts come to you on a football free weekend. Sure, there are Cup Semi-Finals and league games involving ALL of our rivals. But as we are not involved, I’m going to go for a long walk that will start about 10am tomorrow and finish on Monday night, just to avoid the scores.
Worst case scenario is we will find ourselves in nineteenth place, five points from safety, albeit with two games in hand. Best case scenario is that we will find ourselves still in eighteenth place, still two points from safety, still with two games in hand. But I’m not even going to guess as to what will happen over the weekend as this week’s results were such that Wigan will go to The Arse and turn them over on Monday.
Either way, whatever happens, our destiny will still be in our own hands and that is something we will need to think about whilst we are watching Soccer Saturday from behind the cushion. Tom Baker’s stint as Dr. Who had nothing on tomorrow for not wanting to watch. And, naturally, when I say we, I mean you. I’ll be off up a hill.
The good news is that Fab should have been released from the London Chest Hospital and be on his way to continue his rehabilitation in Cheadle, although nothing has yet been confirmed on the official site. Maybe he’s going round all the staff one by one and giving them a piece of that cake, which should take some time. My guess is, hospital forms being what they are, they’ve spelt his name wrong after reading Gary Lineker’s initial tweets and are having to hastily change the discharge notes from ‘Patrice’ to ‘Fabrice’. Either way, the progress that he has made, you wouldn’t put it past Fab to jog up the M1/M6 corridor.
The reports as to what extent his recovery will allow him to do vary from nothing to breaking into a full sprint past Zat Knight at Euxton in a couple of weeks. In the past I’ve not been the most vocal supporter of the official website, but when it comes to this kind of thing I would wait for any official confirmation from them rather than any of the national rags. When it came to news from London after his collapse, on the web it was the official site and only the official site that you could guarantee would give you the facts and any hyperbole over what he can and cannot do should be considered just that.
Away from this, it is good to see that a man who knows a thing or two about sticking the ball in the opposition net for Bolton is as nonplussed about the non selection of Marvin Sordell as the rest of us. ‘Super’ John McGinlay may no longer be able to do what came naturally (scoring and smacking Wolves players) and he may be a bit too much of an apologist for the manager (although you can’t blame him for defending his mate) but what he says is pretty spot on and echoes what has been said here and on other sites. I don’t pretend to think that he can do it by himself, he is no Daniel Sturridge, but there comes a time when you have to bite the bullet and select a player before they start getting piles from sitting on the bench too long. We don’t have enough money to be spending £3million on a player we don’t use, future or not. Nothing appeared to work in the last two games to aruge against Sordell not playing some part against Swansea. And if you are good enough to command that kind of fee, regardless of who else was sniffing around, then you are old enough.
Besides, rather him than Tope Obadeyi. That’s Sordell rather than Super John. In fact, I’ll take Super John.
Right, with that, and with no game, we will take a much deserved weekend off. We will return, hail and hearty from our meanderings, on Monday. Have a good weekend. And don’t worry, although I have no basis for saying that.