Tomorrow night we may finally see Dean Windass back in a Hull City shirt for his first competitive appearance since his day of immortality at Wembley. However, the story tellers still won't get their chance to wax lyrical about a near 40 year old playing at the top of the English game, for it is merely a Carling Cup tie.
Windass will feel put out by his absence thus far; an absence which has seen him placed on the new-look bloated benches but not yet called upon to make a grand entrance into the Premier League scene, one which he last graced six years ago at Middlesbrough. He has also watched while the other replacement striker available, Caleb Folan, has received his call-up on both occasions, going so far as to score a memorable winning goal after a late introduction to the game on the opening day.
For all the disappointment he'll feel, however, Windass is not unprofessional. Even before he had changed back into his club suit in the Wembley dressing room, City fans were blessing his existence while simultaneously wondering how effective, certainly as a starting striker, he would be against the very top defences. At 39, he has the talent and guile, not to mention the cynicism, to ruffle any well-paid back four feathers, but he hasn't the pace and probably not the stamina either. First impressions of Phil Brown's thinking is that Windass, for all that he would not wish to alter that beautiful moment at Wembley, has been hoisted by his own petard.
Still, a Carling Cup tie at a very tricky and inconvenient venue would give Brown ample opportunity to gauge the Windass attitude once given his opportunity. The ineligibility of Marlon King due to the terms of his loan deal from Wigan Athletic, plus Brown's own sense of priority (he picked reserves through our three Carling Cup games last season and our one FA Cup tie), suggests that Windass, and probably Folan, will each get a starting role at Swansea City. The extra carrot on the stick for each is that King is also not going to be around for Saturday as we're playing his parent club, so whoever performs best at the Liberty Stadium against the League One champions will almost certainly keep their place for the Latics' weekend jolly over to Hull.
Windass gets the attention for sentimental and parochial reasons; Folan, however, has his own incentives. Wigan was the team which, albeit not under their current manager, accepted a million pounds of Paul Duffen's money a few days shy of a year ago and sent their lanky, velvet-voiced striker across the Pennines. His previous brief foray in the top tier at an end, Folan would now relish the chance to show his old employers that they were wrong to take the money, for all the value it seemed to represent for both sides, and therefore one good display at Swansea will represent an excellent opportunity for him to secure a starting place at the KC.
Folan also has acquired one of those unfortunate reputations as a 'supersub', a kind of Red Adair figure who swoops into action in an emergency and stamps on wayward fires by grabbing winners or absolute clinchers, something which was as evident as ever with the world watching as City made their Premier League bow. It grabs him the glory, but it does him no long-term favours - like a versatile player who is best used only when someone takes a whack, a so-called supersub is deemed to be less effective when starting a game. Folan, a good pro, has proved himself many a time as a starter in City colours, but needs to do so all over again.
So, both will probably start at Swansea in a very tricky tie against a side we got used to playing frequently at their hideous, shabby and perennially muddy old Vetch Field ground in the bad old 1990s. We can expect to see other fringe players like Bryan Hughes, Wayne Brown and even one of Boaz Myhill's netminding understudies to get the call too.
But as far as those two centre forwards are concerned, we shall simply see who does best. If it's 2-0 with goals from Windass and Folan, to pluck an example randomly out, the manager will be forced into a decision on Saturday which will require serious guts.
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