Was anybody else as proud of Joleon Lescott last night as I was?
When he joined the club it was the very beginning of "the project". He was treated like shit by Moyes and by fans of Everton. He was widely renounced in the media as moving clubs for "non-football" reasons. I remember him being forced to play for them in a friendly and getting abuse fromt he crowd. Yet still he kept his mouth shut and joined us.
He got unfair stick during in first half season from a section of our crowd, too. He made one or two errors as he settled in but he nearly became a whipping boy, completely unjustly.
He's had periods where Kolo has been, again unjustly in my opinion, preferred to him at centre half. He missed out on the last world cup because of this.
But you never see him moaning or causing trouble. He's been rock-solid consistent for the last two seasons and totally deserved being an automatic selection. The goals he was obviously capable of started to come, with a knack of being in important, tight games.
He comes across as a down-to-earth, professional team-player and a nice guy. We lose balance and strength when he's not playing. He's part of the fabric of MCFC now, even though he'll have to fight to retain his place next season if we sign a world-class centre half, as I suspect. He's winning medals, getting lots of England caps and is a household name now.
I was really proud of him when he scored that goal last night. Couldn't have happened to a nicer or more deserving guy.
