Time for Dazza Prazza to duck and cover.
Well, hello there again. It doesn`t seem two days ago when we were bringing you the defence preview, yet here we are, two days later. A lot has happened in that time. We have been drawn away at Crawley Town, bringing with it cries of “where the hell is that” and “how much to get down” and “mum, where`s me tea”. I suspect that Owen Coyle is thinking that someone has set him up, what with Mark Connolly being brought up at the fans forum and then Mark himself being slightly to over enthusiastic in his language when he discovered the draw. One would hope that someone, somewhere, is opening up a new pack of Imperial Leather and waiting to wash his mouth out.
Anyway, all that has nothing to do with the midfield, for it is here that we should be brining it. So, without any further ado, prevarication or muddling around, we bring you the Vital Bolton midfield preview.
Someone get Darren Pratley a tin hat.
Out: Ricardo Gardner (again), Nigel Reo-Coker, Sean Davis
In: Keith Andrews, Joe McKee
Retired: Fabrice Muamba
At the fans forum on Tuesday, OC mentioned having two players for every position, with Stuart Holden coming in and adding to the mixture in October. And it is difficult to argue with him. We DO have two players for every position. We just don`t know how they will react to playing in a lower division.
The loss of Fabrice Muamba should be gauged in terms of his actually being alive. Many will remember his first season at Bolton, when he couldn`t hit a barn door at one yard and spent most of his time not doing anything spectacularly. At £5million, he cost a lot of money for what we were getting, and this didn`t improve much early in his second season. Many are the times when fans in the North Stand saw more of the ball than the opposition goalkeeper when Muamba turned to shoot. If he were playing for Norwich or either of the Nottingham teams, they would need more rowing boats to collect the balls from the rivers next to the ground. It took the signing of Stuart Holden to bring Muamba to the fore and together they formed a perfect partnership, Muamba mopping up behind Holden and vice versa. Holden`s injury didn`t stop Muamba`s progress and he was one of the better players towards the end of the Semi-Final season. It says a lot for the progress that he made that when OC chopped and changed the team last season, and Muamba was regularly left out, there were howls of protest. His game against Liverpool, when he was pushed up to run at their defence, an indication of just he could do. It is worth noting though, that by the time of his cardiac arrest, he was not first choice, regularly finding NRC, Mavies and Pratley ahead of him. There were times he wasn`t even on the bench. In terms of playing, there appeared to have been a disuniting of minds between the England U-21 international and his manager. The suddenness of what happened to him has done much to remove that part of his history from our minds, but one would need to ask oneself just what future he would have had at Bolton, especially with Holden so much at the forefront of OC`s mind. Still, we will never know and can only wish him all the best in the future, be it at The Reebok in some capacity or elsewhere.
As for the rest of the midfield, I remember OC going through the list like this: LCY and Eagles on the right, Petrov and Wylde on the left, Mavies and Pratley as the attacking forward and Andrews and Vela as the defensive. That seems to be pretty much two for every position, with Holden coming back. The loss of Muamba may make OC look for another midfielder, especially as, despite his sunny disposition on Tuesday night, there are no guarantees as to what state Stuart Holden will return in. Knee injuries are funny things, players have retired with less injured knees than Holden, and whilst he ran the show at Villa last season, that was one game. No one should think that his return will herald some glorious fast track back to the big time.
Of the rest, it will be a cold day in hell before I believe that Darren Pratley is Premier League class, but he may just find his feet in The Championship. Many are the players who fail to make the step up and Pratley didn`t just fail, he fell over the first step, banged his head and then ran around with amnesia, forgetting he was a football player. However, he proved in his time at Swansea that he can do it if he wants and his return to the Championship should produce the player that OC thought he was getting. Whether or not he gets his chance will depend on whether Mark Davies remains at the club. Every player has his price, just ask Arsenal, and whilst there are some who would like Bolton to sell Mavies for the price Swansea are offering, you can understand the manager`s reluctance to do so. He may not be as good as OC makes out, but he will be one of the best players in the Championship. This does not mean that he should be given his head in trying to run through the whole defence, then come back and try it again like George Best. He isn`t that good. But he is a far better player than Pratley and should be first choice.
Next to him, Keith Andrews is a steady player with bags of Championship experience. With Holden unfit, Muamba retired and Reo-Coker gone, Andrews should be a shoo in for a starting berth. Josh Vela is talented but still needs nurturing, whilst Andrews has seen it and done it. He has international experience to boot. Reo-Coker`s departure hurt as you would hope that any player who has been part of a team that has gone down would want to remain at the club and take it back up, rather than thinking you are better than the level you have found yourself at. The lack of interest in Reo-Coker seems to prove Aston Villa`s feeling that no one would be interested in him but it still seems surprising.
On the right wing, as good as Chris Eagles is, there is only one Chung-Yong Lee and it would be surprising not to see him be the first choice. The same applies to Martin Petrov on the left who, despite his reluctance sometimes to track back, is more of a finished article than Gregg Wylde, who is undoubtedly one for the future. Joe McKee`s signing barely ruffled the newsstands, given that it took a while for the club to confirm it. This seems like a vanity project on OC`s part, trying to prove that he was right although Eddie Howe saw nothing special in the lad.
Strange as it may seem, the midfield excites me. A midfield four of LCY-Mavies-Andrews-Petrov is one of the best in the division. Naturally, there will be times when the ball evades them as it whizzes between defences and it is up to them to get themselves into the game. The crosses from both LCY and Petrov will have to be spot on, given the more physical nature of the Championship. There will be injuries along the way, but if Stuart Holden does come back and performs at the level he did two seasons ago, the players across the park could just lead us back to the Premier League at a canter.
Don`t tell anyone I said that.