Vela’s vigour gets our fickle fans firing again

WITH ALL that’s transpired in the past few days, from Rafa’s Keeganesque moment, with his hilarious rant about ol’ Red Nose, to Chelsea’s capitulation at Old Trafford, it felt as if this was a weekend of some significance at the top of the table.

Meanwhile, with Martin O’Neill’s side keeping up the pressure in Saturday’s lunchtime kick-off, by taking all three points against the Baggies, come 3pm we knew we couldn’t afford an upset against Megson’s decimated Bolton. I’ve regularly moaned in the past about Arsène’s reluctance to tinker with his team, until the last 15 or 20 minutes. But after we’d barely warmed Jasskelainen’s gloves during the first hour of Saturday’s bitterly cold affair, the fact le Prof decided to replace Diaby and throw Carlos Vela into the fray for the last half an hour, demonstrated he was patently aware nothing less than a win would suffice, if we were to cling to the coattails of the top four.

With Vela taking up a position out on the left flank and Nasri moving into the middle, it wasn’t so much what the diminutive Mexican did with the ball that changed the game, but that compared to the languid, loping, but ultimately lacklustre efforts of the lanky Diaby, Carlos’s energy and his unbridled enthusiasm lent this encounter the sort of dynamism, which had been sorely lacking up until then.