IF anyone deserves a break on the pitch at the moment, it’s Gary Madine.

I am still baffled how Coventry City keeper Lee Burge stopped him from scoring at the Macron the other night. I know the replay has been shown a few times at Lostock, just to check it wasn’t a trick of the light.

It has been a while since Madine got a goal, 12 games in fact, and if Wanderers were in a different situation that statistic may provide more reason for concern.

But I have a sneaky suspicion things are about to change for the former Sheffield Wednesday man, and that his hard work on the pitch might soon pay off with a goal or two.

I spent long enough covering the fortunes of Kevin Davies to know the expression of a striker who is ‘doing a job for the team’ but who would dearly like to be grabbing headlines for hitting the back of the net.

Big Kev used to get through a mountain of work for the Whites and save his goals for when the team really needed them. Or when they were playing West Ham.

Madine proved in his younger days he can be prolific but right now that hard work is opening up gaps for Zach Clough, Josh Vela and Sammy Ameobi – who are loving their time in the spotlight.

I’m happy to see that the Wanderers fans have appreciated his hard work too.

His relationship with the terraces has not always been the best. And there when he did not help himself.

I like a bit of devilment in a striker, though, and I think as Madine’s fan club gets stronger, so will his performances, which are already 100 per cent more consistent than they were at this stage 12 months ago under the unpredictable reign of Neil Lennon.

As a person, I had a lot of time for the Northern Irishman. He was great company, an interesting orator and when things were going well, as they were for a while, the club was a joy to be around.

When things started to head south, however, I wonder how much of the frustration was passed on towards players like Madine?

Management is 50 per cent psychology and watching Phil Parkinson carefully pick and choose how he deals with his players has taught me quite a bit.

There is only so much the coaching staff can do on the training field, however, and whether it is Madine, or any other player in the Wanderers ranks, keeping focus in modern football must be difficult. I wonder sometimes if players would be better off living in a sensory deprivation tank between games?

We live in a world of instant opinion, where you can go from hero to zero with a couple of taps on the keyboard.

Back in the day, legends like Tommy Banks, Roy Hartle and Nat Lofthouse didn’t have many bad games – or at least not any still discussed to this day. But when they did, the worst grief they could expect to receive would be a few frank exchanges outside Burnden Park, a bit of crafty whispering on the bus back home, or a few negative lines from Haydn Berry in the Buff.

Modern day footballers enjoy plenty of the trappings of fame, earning money the Roy Greaves, Syd Farrimonds and John Byroms of this world could only dream about. They also have pressures and demands which were never asked of the players of yesteryear.

Earlier in the week I noticed fans’ website Lion of Vienna put up an article entitled: Is this Bolton Wanderers’ Worst Ever Strikeforce?

Hyperbolic headline aside, the story is nicely written, and who am I to say what is right or wrong? It is only an opinion.

It is a headline which will be frozen in time, forever set in cyberspace. It would have bruised my ego – whether that is the same for the players in the story, I don’t know.

Madine will get back among the goals. And, like Davies, I hope that the one he scores is important. But as long as Wanderers keep winning games he, Parkinson or the fans shouldn’t care a jot whose name makes the headlines.