The return of Bozhinov

Hoping about Bozhinov kept me going last season. As we struggled through those long tiresome winter months (six goals in eight games in January, three goals in three in February, three in five in March) I invested immensely in his comeback. It wasn't to be: he didn't play another competitive first team game that year. But yesterday he scored his first senior goal for City. Isn't this what we've been waiting for?

At the Boleyn Ground on opening day last August I was impressed by Bozhinov as much as Elano or Petrov. His bravery, his skill, his chest puffed out arrogance. Here was a Wayne Rooney we could love. I'd heard of him before: inevitably from Football Manager, and then occasional skims through Calcio Italia magazine. And of course I'd seen the YouTube. Thirty minutes against Derby County earned him a start against United. Five minutes in, he jumped for a header and on landing ruptured his ligaments.

And so for the rest of the season, I consoled myself on days like this that Bozhinov would soon return and make everything ok. The worse our goalscoring situation got, the more hope I invested in Bozhinov. His first team record, like the Kennedy presidency, was easier mythologised due to its brevity. There was only the anticipation, and no chance for the comedown. (Imagine if Eriksson had died or, even worse, resigned in December 2007, and the tones in which we would now speak of him). Everything City lacked in that dismal back nine: bite, energy and, of course, goals we projected (not entirely unfairly) onto Bozhinov. His return would be a panacea. The verve and success of August 2007 would return in an instant.

The initial diagnosis was four months. This slipped gradually backwards, there was a reserve comeback, an alleged goal against Liverpool but no first team football. When he did play, on the absurd sideshow of our Bangkok tour in May, it was not the story. But yesterday, 356 days after Upton Park, he scored his first senior goal for City. He only played seventeen minutes (wearing the currently vacant number 9 shirt): one third of the time he has so far played for City in league football. But Hughes was full of praise. We have a £19million striker, and we're right to be very excited about him, but this could just be Bozhinov's year.