Ron Atkinson was never one of football's Messiahs. As a player he wore the yellow of Oxford United but was hardly a lily of the field. As a manager he has trodden thin ice occasionally but left the walking on water to others.
On Saturday the supporters of Sheffield Wednesday welcomed him back warmly enough but it was palm against palm rather than palms strewn in his path. As second comings go the occasion was relatively muted.
Wednesday fans are not daft. Big Ron was back on qualified approval. After all he had walked out six years before to take charge of Aston Villa and had only returned on an eight-month contract.
Yet he began well enough the second time around. A fortnight earlier, following the dismissal of David Pleat, Sheffield Wednesday had roused themselves to rout Bolton Wanderers 5-0. Now they greeted Atkinson's return with an industrious, if not inspired, 2-0 victory over an Arsenal side weakened by injuries and suspensions but still showing sufficient strength of purpose to leave the result in doubt until Guy Whittingham scored Wednesday's second goal four minutes from time.
Pleat's team looked to the creation of space and the harnessing of the skills of players like Benito Carbone to the battles of wits that football at the higher level should always be. But in terms of goals conceded and points lost his casualty rate became unacceptably high. With Atkinson it is more a case of back to the trenches and no retreating.
On Saturday he announced a club rule : "If the ball hits anyone on the backside it's a fine. I don't mind it hitting them in the face or in the b . . . . . . s but I don't want anyone turning their backs. When a side hasn't got the right spirit they don't make that last yard."
Of course nobody will really be fined for bottoming out but Atkinson has never demanded anything less than total commitment from his players and will give short shrift to anyone in the squad less than fully enamoured of the work ethic. Sheffield Wednesday are in the thick of a relegation dog-fight and their next three matches are against Southampton, Barnsley and West Ham, for whom survival is also the season's sole aim.
Arsenal's aim has gone slightly awry. They came to Hillsborough looking less like Premier League championship contenders than a risky each-way bet. A combination of suspensions and injuries had deprived them of Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit and Steve Bould. Ian Wright did not even have the raw support of Nicolas Anelka.
Sheffield Wednesday took the lead courtesy of an aberration by Gilles Grimandi, a right-footed defender forced to play to the left of Tony Adams by the absence of Bould. Grimandi was well placed to cut out Jim Magilton's crossfield pass but when he tried to play it back first-time he provided Andy Booth with the best through-ball anyone received all afternoon.
Booth, who had scored a hat-trick against Bolton, now coolly found the net beyond the advancing Seaman.
"We looked solid but not creative," said Arsene Wenger afterwards, but even Arsenal's solidity had melted away in the 86th minute when Petter Rudi's pass released Carbone, who had come on for Paolo Di Canio, to set up Whittingham for a carefully-controlled shot that had Seaman going the wrong way.
"Drink Ron? Scotch?" asked the press steward as Atkinson prepared to give his umpteenth interview of the week. "Got any white wine?" said the man charged with keeping Sheffield Wednesday in the Premier League. Atkinson will not be turning water into Chardonnay over the coming months but Hillsborough would settle for gripes into grapes by next spring.
Sheffield Wednesday: Pressman, Atherton, Nolan, Pembridge, Newsome, Walker, Whittingham, Booth, Di Canio (Carbone 79), Magilton (Hyde 84), Rudi. Subs Not Used: Clarke, Blondeau, Humphreys. Booked: Nolan, Atherton. Goals: Booth 42, Whittingham 86.
Arsenal: Seaman, Dixon, Winterburn, Adams, Platt, Wright, Overmars, Keown, Parlour (Hughes 38), Grimandi (Marshall 51), Mendez (Wreh 54). Subs Not Used: Manninger, Upson. Booked: Grimandi, Adams, Platt.
Referee: K W Burge (Tonypandy).
Guardian Service.
