Steven Taylor: My mate Chopra is no bottle job

Sep 13 2009 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

WEARSIDE conspiracy theorists may beg to differ, but Steven Taylor takes on Michael Chopra today insisting their last meeting did not prove his fellow Tynesider is “a bottler”.

In the type of moment which can define a striker’s career, Chopra chose last season’s Tyne-Wear derby to refuse a glorious chance to score for Sunderland against his hometown club.

Clean through on goal, with just four minutes left and legendary derby status beckoning, he opted to attempt a pass to strike partner Kenwyne Jones.

A hopelessly over-hit pass.

It didn’t help that Newcastle fanatic Taylor himself had won a dubious penalty for United’s equaliser.

Nor that Chopra’s only Premier League goal as a Magpie had come against Sunderland.

Nor that he had scored for fun while on loan from the Stadium of Light at Cardiff.

Within 24 hours of February’s derby, he was back at Ninian Park. Permanently, it would turn out. Few were surprised.

And yet, even through his black and white-tinted glasses, Taylor simply cannot see Chopra having lost his nerve when it mattered in front of goal, far less that he was reluctant to score in front of his own people.

Which is why Taylor will watch his long-lost friend like a hawk this afternoon.

“Bottler? No way, never,” the lad from Monkseaton says of his old mucker from Gosforth.