THE youngest man on the pitch came out with the oldest cliche in the book to put an element of perspective on Wanderers' runaway success, writes Neil Bonnar

Kevin Nolan, 18 going on 38, answered the age old question of whether his team could go all the way with the age old answer that he prefers to take one game at a time.

Keeping your feet on the ground when your team has just won its fifth game on the bounce - and won it at a canter - to go six points clear in the second automatic place is not easy but it is necessary.

While a massively heartening 21,316 crowd worked off their Christmas dinners belting out: "We only need 10 men" and "we are going up" it pays to look at the bigger picture.

No-one is going to catch Wanderers if they continue to play like this until the beginning of May. But if they allow themselves to get carried away they might as well kiss goodbye to promotion now.

The foundation is in place for a successful campaign, the squad is tried and tested and the belief if beginning to spill over into the stands. But there is an awful long way to go.

One thing in Wanderers' favour is they have an awful lot of experienced campaigners in their ranks who have seen it all before and who will not be fazed one iota by league positions at Christmas.

In Dean Holdsworth, Franck Passi, Colin Hendry, Gudni Bergsson, Ian Marshall, Per Frandsen and Paul Warhurst there is enough knowhow and experience to handle the roller-coaster emotional ride that goes hand in hand with successful promotion campaigns. Then you look at Nolan and you see that even the kids have old heads.

You can't go up without quality and few would argue with Sam Allardyce's after-match verdict that this Reebok squad has enough talent to do the job.

The consensus is that the only thing that can stop them is if they shoot themselves in the foot and give their rivals a chance - or, of course, if, say, Blackburn or Birmingham produce the kind of phenomenal winning streak it's impossible to legislate for.

But Wanderers aren't worried about what everyone else is doing. Rather it's quite the opposite with the Reebok revolution sending alarm bells ringing through the rest of the promotion-chasing pack.

And on this performance there is plenty for them to worry about. Wanderers were nowhere near their best and still won easily and any team that can do that deserves respect.

Just like at Burnley Sam's boys snuffed out the opposition's threat, created by far the better chances and converted a couple. Two good days at the office and on both occasions you could see they had another gear if necessary.

True, you could say there was an element of luck about their 14th minute opening goal which saw Dean Holdsworth head on Gareth Farrelly's long throw and the ball loop over a packed goalmouth and into the far corner. Holdsworth response to whether it was intended to be an effort on goal was that it was something they have been working on in training - the chuckle and glint in his eye as he said suggested there could have been a slice of good fortune involved.

Who cares? Anyway, isn't it the way of the football world that the team at the top gets all the luck and the strugglers are left moaning that everything is going against them?

Second bottom Wednesday couldn't complain. They deserve credit for coming with an attacking four-four-two formation and going for goal at every opportunity but they were beaten by a better side.

Jussi Jaaskelainen was given only fleeting moments of danger to deal with - and he did it with the polish you would expect of the best keeper outside the Premiership. In front of him he has a defence which is rightly proud of having kept clean sheets in the last three games.

The back line boys are proving formidable at keeping the ball out of their goal - and not half bad at putting it in the opposition's.

Gudni Bergsson has been knocking them in regularly...and now Colin Hendry's starting. The 49 times capped Scottish international hasn't scored for his last two clubs and admitted he couldn't recall the last time he found the net before remembering it was some time in the 1997-98 season.

He certainly showed no sign of rustiness when he climbed to thump a bullet 51st minute header into the bottom corner from Nolan's cross. It was the perfect way to cap his third towering performance since joining the club on a three-month loan.

Hendry has had a fairytale start to his temporary Wanderers career. Three games, three wins, three clean sheets and a goal on his home debut...and Hogmanay's coming up. What more could a Scot want?

He is part of a four-man defence who look to be digging the trenches for a war in the second half of the season. Unfortunately John O'Kane will miss three of those games after getting himself sent off for taking Boxing Day a little too literally with an impetuous act of retaliation on Alan Quinn 24 minutes before the end.

In front of them Nolan and Farrelly covered miles prompting and spoiling while Bo Hansen and Ricardo Gardner were effective flankmen albeit more with toil than technique on this occasion.

Unlike on Saturday, this wasn't Michael Ricketts' day but alongside him Dean Holdsworth was a handful and was desperately unlucky to be denied a second headed goal when Kevin Pressman pulled off a magnificent fingertip save at full stretch 60 seconds into the second half.