Tomlin’s yet to fire, but he can’t sit back and wait for chance

AT the end of the day, every player knows they do not have a divine right to play.

Sometimes when you’re brought in as the star player, you’re expecting things to happen and perhaps you’re not really in the mind frame to think “I’ve got to go out and make things happen”.

You expect to play because you’re bought as the star man – like Lee Tomlon – you expect to score goals, but if it doesn’t happen or someone else comes in and steals your thunder – which is basically what’s happened – because let’s be fair, for the first six or seven games Nathaniel Mendez-Laing was the superstar of the team, he took everyone’s breath away.

You can’t let that take anything away from your own personal performance.

Being left out wouldn’t make his head drop, but the focus is not on you, you’re not the main man, you’re not the person brought in to be the star man of this team. Someone else has got that mantle.

So you have a decision, and you either say “I’m going to go up and show why they brought me in as the main man” or “I’m going to let others shine and I’m just going to hope that I get another opportunity down the line”.

The only way you’re going to get an opportunity is being the best in training, and when you do get an opportunity, you’ve got to be playing so well that the manager has to think he can’t do without you.

I don’t see Tomlin as a luxury player, I see him as a lock-picker type player.

The type of player he is and the skill level he’s got, he should be thinking to himself, an average season is around 12 goals, a decent season is 16 or 17 goals, and a normal season is 20 goals. With the amount of skill he’s got, if in 30 games he couldn’t get you 10 or 12 goals you’d be disappointed.

But when you don’t know some- one, you don’t know if it’s a mental thing, whether he’s carrying a knock, whether him and the manager don’t get on, you don’t know whether he likes the boys in the dressing room, if he and his wife aren’t getting on. Footballers are everyday people.

It doesn’t mean because you’re a multi-millionaire superstar footballer that your kids can’t get sick or your mum and dad can’t fall out and get divorced or your brother can’t do something our of the ordinary.

We just tend to look at Lee and say football. Done.

I got dropped once by Eddie May for a game. It was quite clever what he did because he knew that Eddie Newton and Gerry Harrison were coming in and he dropped me for the next game then brought me on as a sub, and the performance level went up again.

I wasn’t happy at the time but it was a really good move and it shows how you can mess with the psychology of players and turn them around or get them back on track.

The other time was at Sheffield United with Dave Bassett but that was of my own doing. I’d signed there from Cardiff, had a great season in the Premier League but got relegated on the last day of the season, and I went into the next season thinking “I’ve arrived”. I was a 22-year-old thinking I don’t need to do too much in preseason and I’ll just go on holiday and come back. But what I found by the time I came back, I was too far behind – physically – others who had been at that level. You know you’ve got to stay fit. By the time we got to the fitness training I was way down with the levels where I should have been. That happened to me once but it never happened again, I made sure of it by working hard.

Tomlin can’t complain. Neil’s picking the side and changing systems. Let’s be fair, if you’re the star man and there’s players out and the system changes and you still don’t get in, to me, and I might be totally wrong, it might be a million and one other reasons.

I would say you’re not showing that desire to get back in the team.

I always used to use the approach that I’m the main man in the team, and if I play well we win, so I need to get myself going and get to a level where my fellow players love me for what I do. It’s not a selfish thing because I’m a team player.

If you do that, people will be saying why are you leaving him out rather than saying to leave him out of the team.

I see it as a battle between Lee and himself but there might be other problems behind the scenes.

I think he’s a quality player, and I