Was applauded off the pitch when he came off against Manchester City tonight. We looked a poorer side without him; he was fighting for every ball and using his physical attributes (big, strong, lanky) very effectively.

While I’m not a booer of players in general, and certainly not of players like Shola who I feel do try but are just lacking in ability, I had long since given up on anyone making a quality Premiership striker out of Shola Ameobi.

After all, you think that if Bobby Robson, Graeme Sourness (okay, maybe forget him), Glenn Roeder, Sam Allardyce and Kevin Keegan haven’t managed to get him to play, it’s maybe time to give up on him? But then along comes Joe Kinnear — possibly the only man who thinks that saying “Ameobi could be the next John Fashanu” is a compliment — and we’ve suddenly got a big, strong, aggressive centre-forward who keeps winning headers and even does something he’s not done for two years — score a goal.

Okay, we only scraped a draw at home to Manchester City, but as they were given a goal start and a player start by getting a free penalty & sending off when Beye got a good (i.e. not a foul) tackle in on someone in the penalty area, ending up disappointed we didn’t win is quite good. At that point I expected us to crumble.

But no, we seem to have a new-found resilience. It’s not just Butt and Guthrie snapping at the heels of the opposition; Ameobi was refusing to let them settle too, and Damien Duff showed that he’s got some teeth as well.

The problem Joe Kinnear has is that his squad simply isn’t good enough, or big enough. The other problem he has is that when someone new comes in, they’ll no doubt look for a new manager immediately. And while I still feel we ought to be aiming higher than JFK, I have been impressed with what he’s been doing so far, and he deserves some credit for having turned the team around (even if it hasn’t quite been matched by results yet).