IT feels as if all our Christmases have come at once – you get a great result at Sunderland, Marvin Sordell is scoring goals and players like Stu Holden and Josh Vela are back out on the pitch.

What a great few days it has been for Dougie Freedman and the team, but you know what they say about striking while the iron is white hot.

All the ingredients are there again. Confidence should be no problem at all after the performance at the Stadium of Light and hopefully, we can now get ourselves on a roll.

There hasn’t been a lot to look forward to for the Bolton fans just recently. Things have been very stop-start, and there are reasons for that, but I don’t necessarily think the season is done and dusted. There is still a chance of those play-offs but it’s going to need a big push now from the players, the staff and the fans.

You could feel the frustration at times on Saturday against Millwall and I’d guarantee that’s the case in the dressing room too. We feel we should be doing better than we are.

The reality is that unless we get going soon, then this season will have been a write-off. But maybe that FA Cup win can be a spark to get us going?

Getting Josh and Stuart back would have been such a massive boost for the manager, especially as it looks as if David Wheater and Mark Davies won’t be far behind.

All of a sudden he’s a man with options. Here’s where he earns his money because for the first time in a long time, he can get his best team out there on the pitch where it counts.

**********

FORGET everything that has been written or tweeted about Marvin Sordell in the last few weeks – if the lad is out there on the pitch, he won’t have a care in the world.

Talk about a well-timed boost. The two goals he scored against Sunderland could be the launch pad for a whole new chapter in Sordell’s career.

If his head hasn’t been in the right place since he came to Bolton, then there was only ever going to be one cure, and that’s playing games and scoring goals.

Putting in performances like he did in the cup will go a long way to helping the lad because when you are playing well, and especially when the goals are going in regularly, you don’t have a whole lot else to worry about.

I’m sure he’ll be ready to go again now at Palace. The question is, does his manager change things up front? We know he likes to rotate his players, so nothing is guaranteed.

A lot of the off-the-field stuff that seems to have been affecting Marvin can be taken away by performances on the park. When you are not in the team, you have more time on your hands to think about things and I know that little problems can seem bigger when you dwell on them.

Right now he’ll be on cloud nine. I doubt he’ll care about Twitter or homesickness anything like as much as he would a couple of weeks ago.

I really hope that this is the start of something for him now, because we’ve been crying out for someone to score regularly up front, and this could be his moment.

************

THIS weekend’s game obviously throws up a bit of history for Dougie Freedman as he prepares to head back to Selhurst Park for the first time.

You know what football is like – ex-players, ex-managers get stick when they go back to an old club – but I’d be surprised if it is too severe where he is concerned.

You look at what an excellent job he did for the club as a player and then a manager, I’m sure the majority of Palace fans would thank him for that.

He viewed the job at Bolton as a better option when it came up, just as Ian Holloway looked at the Palace job and wanted in from Blackpool. It’s a merry-go-round.

Freedman won’t let any of that affect his preparations. I’m sure he’ll do a professional job and that emotions won’t come into it at all.

He knows we need a result down there to really get us going, and after the win against Sunderland there’s the carrot of a shirt for the FA Cup game against Everton to play for as well.

That’s a big incentive for the players this weekend. They will want to be involved at the Reebok, so a big performance this weekend is a must.

************

OUR defenders have come in for a bit of stick this season but credit where credit is due – they were magnificent against Sunderland.

A clean sheet will do confidence the world of good ahead of the game against Palace, and that has to be the starting point when we go into this weekend.

There were a few players who have been out of the reckoning who did their reputation no harm in midweek.

Andy Lonergan made some great saves at important times over the two games against Sunderland, and he must be knocking on the door now.

Darren Pratley came back into midfield on Tuesday night too, earned a penalty, and put himself about as he always does.

You need someone like him in the team, who will do that groundwork, especially at this level.

A bit like Marvin Sordell, he’s been under pressure every time he goes out on the pitch because he knows deep inside that he won’t be getting six games to prove himself.

When a chance comes along it’s a case of trying to fit everything in. You expend all that effort and sometimes it is doing the wrong things, making the wrong runs, instead of being clever about it.

When you look at the team as a unit, you know that players like Pratley can be really important in order to mix things up a bit.