Across the great divide

I wrote last Saturday about the week ahead being a huge one for us at Bolton and so far it’s gone the way our season has been to date — typically inconsistent.

We beat Watford only to lose to Birmingham and today we’re away at Sheffield Wednesday.

When a team gets relegated, there is often doom and gloom around the club and generally quite a negative atmosphere, but I haven’t felt that at all since I arrived at the Reebok in July. The main reason for that is the enthusiasm and passion the manager, Owen Coyle, shows on a daily basis — and it’s very infectious.

I didn’t really have any qualms about dropping down a division to play in the Championship for Bolton. Some people will say I should have signed for a Premier League side — and I did have offers — but I just felt this was the right move. Every player has to make decisions throughout their career and this time around, being out of contract and having my destiny in my own hands was a nice place to be. Although I’m not sure it would have been if there were no offers coming in. I really wanted to be a part of something special and felt the challenge of getting promoted with a proper club like Bolton would suit me better than perhaps just being a squad player at a Premier League side.

There are a lot of footballers quite content at being squad players and playing every now and again, but that’s never really appealed to me. You train and prepare all week to play on a Saturday afternoon and if I don’t get that regularly, then I become frustrated. That was why I chose to go out on loan to Ipswich this time last season and in January walked away from a contract with 18 months left to run, to join West Brom on a six-month contract. A lot of people said at the time I was crazy to walk away from that type of security but I didn’t see it that way. For my own sanity, for a start, I had to get away from Blackburn, and then the chance to work with Roy Hodgson and go to the Euros in the best possible shape and form I could be in, was an opportunity I couldn’t let pass.

There is no doubt that there is a massive gulf between the Premier League and the Championship. At Championship level if you are well organised as a team and have players with a little bit of magic to create and score goals, you can be successful. You only have to look at the likes of Southampton and Reading to see evidence of this. Both of these sides got automatic promotion on merit last season, although a few West Ham fans may dispute that.

Now, even just a handful of games into the season, the euphoria of getting promoted to the Premier League is probably dwindling and being replaced by the harsh reality of the quality of opposition they are facing every week. I have to say that the fixture list hasn’t been particularly kind on Southampton, in particular, with a home game against Manchester United sandwiched between trips to Man City and Arsenal. Playing against this level of opposition is very difficult and any lapse in concentration or individual error will generally get punished, whereas at Championship level you might get away with it.

Sam Allardyce always used to say that you have to make sure you don’t follow a mistake with another mistake. For instance, if the full-back lets the winger get his cross in, then it’s imperative that the centre-halves don’t let the striker be first to that cross. Watch how many goals this weekend come from one mistake followed by another.

One player who has caught my eye in the last few weeks has been Jermain Defoe. I have always admired him as a fantastic striker but in recent seasons he hasn’t played as prominent a role as he would have wanted, often being used from the bench.

This term, under his new manager, he has been given the chance to show what he is capable of.

You see it a lot when players move club and sometimes struggle to settle or play as well as they did at their former clubs. It can be down to different styles of play or systems, or just something as simple as the player not playing with as much confidence as before.

The two best spells I’ve had as a player were when I was at MK Dons working with Paul Ince and at West Brom under Roy Hodgson. Paul took the time and effort to try and make me into the midfielder he knew I could be and, during his successful reign there, my confidence on the pitch was sky high. I think he owed me anyway, as he arrived at Wolves as a player when I was just starting to establish myself in the first team and cost me about a hundred games as he nicked my place! With Roy it was more about coaching on a team rather than an individual basis, and the training wasn’t anything that I had been used to. It was very much a continental style and took me a few weeks to get used to it but I really enjoyed it. We were so organised as a team that when we went into matches we felt we could give anyone a game.

Before concluding this week, I have to mention the story that broke about the Hungary friendly just before the Euros. To think that, in this day and age, there could have been an elementary oversight, such as an official for the match not being registered with FIFA, is just ridiculous. I heard the news on Thursday after training and informed our Hungarian goalkeeper Adam Bogdanovic. His reaction was one of anger, as he assumed he would be back to nine caps rather than the double figures he had just reached. I suggested he should get on the phone the Hungarian FA to see what was happening, but judging from his reaction I don’t think it would have been easy to get hold of someone, never mind get an answer out of them.

Thankfully the FAI have said they will be issuing a cap for that match, as the person who would have lost out the most would have been Damien Duff. Poor old Duffer would have been stuck on 99 caps. Although, come to think of it, maybe we shouldn’t give it to him as it might force him to come and give us a dig out against the Germans next month! I have been training pain free for about a week now since the treatment I received during the last international break. It was getting to a stage where I was struggling to walk to the toilet in the morning, with the pain in my achilles, so to be pain-free is such a relief. I’m thoroughly looking forward to meeting up next month, if selected. Anybody who knows me is fully aware of how patriotic I am and what it means to me to play for Ireland. It’s felt like an eternity since the last time I wore the jersey against Italy in Poland which, to say the least, obviously didn’t end too well.

But, first, a few wins at club level would be nice before hopefully meeting up in Dublin for the double header with the Germans and the Faroe Islands.