The Jan Molby Column

EVERYBODY has been talking about Drewe Broughton after his eventful match with Hartlepool United at the weekend.

The striker came into the match on the back of a good performance against Cheltenham but it certainly wasn't his day on Saturday at Aggborough.

First he missed a penalty and then somewhat harshly was sent off by the referee for an alleged elbow.

Drewe is the type of forward who is always going to get penalised for such challenges because he uses his elbows for his strength in the air. However, at the moment he tends to use them a split second before the ball arrives to put off defenders and that is something he probably needs to cut out because referees will book him.

As for the penalty, which he decided to take, I don't think that will be happening again. Scott Stamps is the penalty taker and should have been the one on the spot but Drewe decided otherwise!

That's how he is, he's a confident lad and that is a good thing in a footballer. However, it is just a good job there was nothing riding on the game for us.

When I was playing for Liverpool in the European Cup against Austria Vienna, we were awarded a penalty when we were 4-1 up. Paul Walsh stepped up to take it because he was on a hat-trick and missed. The bench were going ballistic because he wasn't the normal penalty taker!

Drewe has done well for us but it's been a very strange season for him. If you consider he has been at about four different clubs this season you understand that he probably always feels he's got something to prove.

A striker is always judged on his goals and that means you are under pressure from day one. He is only young though, people forget he is only 22, and the great thing is that he will come back to Aggborough next season as a Kidderminster player with nothing to prove.

We will also be able to work with him and improve his game. He is good enough to terrorise Third Division defences at the moment but I think he has so much more to offer and has an enormous amount of potential.

The Hartlepool match was probably more important to the visitors than it was to us.

We had reached our 50-point target for the season and there was no chance of getting into the play-offs or being relegated. It was a fairly uneventful game - if you weren't Drewe that is!

It's one of those things in football because the Hartlepool match and our final game of the season to some extent mean very little for the players. I fully understand because as a former player I know how they feel.

I remember clinching championships early at Anfield and then not winning another game until the end of the season - that's just the way it is. When there is nothing to play for, it's difficult to motivate the players.

We may well, barring any injuries in the reserve game this week, bring in a few fringe players for the trip to York on Saturday just to get that hunger back.

I'm sure there are players throughout the club who want to give me something to think about over the summer holiday. It will be a well earned break for them.

They are running on empty at the moment because we haven't got the biggest squad in the division. Players like Adie Smith said he has never felt so exhausted.