Oh for the glory days when you could slap an opposing player in the chops waiting for a corner to be taken, and then laugh about it in the bar over several pints later on.

Anyone questioning George Johnston’s motives in Jubril Okedina’s red card at the Abbey Stadium on Tuesday night needs to give their own bumps a feel.

I’m sorry if you feel the ‘game’s gone’ but it is 2024, and raising your hands to someone constitutes a red card, at least if the referee or his assistant spots it.

Make light of the way Jonno hit the deck all you want – and I will be doing the next time I see him, don’t worry about that – but the sad fact of League One football is that there are no VAR replays. This kind of thing does get missed on a semi-regular basis, and very rarely do you see any retrospective action taken.

If you cast your mind back a few years to Dapo Afolayan throwing a stray elbow out against Lincoln City, which was picked up by the cameras and eventually led to a three-game ban. Examples like that are few and far between in the EFL, so do I blame Johnston for making sure referee Paul Howard noticed the issue, no I don’t.

If he stands and takes it, nothing happens. If he retaliates, there’s a good chance he gets penalised by the referee. Ideally, Mr Howard would have spotted it himself, but considering the free-for-all that occurred each time Cambridge got a set piece, I wouldn’t have banked on it.

I was heartened to see Okedina had apologised to his club’s supporters for letting his emotions get the better of him. It was daft and could have been costly.

Wanderers frustrated after the final whistleWanderers frustrated after the final whistle (Image: CameraSport - Andrew Kearns) The U’s were well worth the point they got in the end, and if they carry on playing with that sort of fight – not literally, mind – they won’t have any problems this season.

The same can’t be said for Wanderers. A third of the way into the season and you simply cannot say with any certainty that they are going to be challenging for an automatic promotion spot in the New Year.

I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times they have provided a 90-minute performance which suggests that they can go further than the play-offs this season. Their best football has been crammed into short bursts, surrounded by, at best, the bang-average offerings of a mid-table team.

Even when you look back at the club’s good run of form post-Huddersfield Town, it is difficult to pick out a spell where Bolton have been genuinely convincing. Each joyous moment like Aaron Collins’ winner against Blackpool on Saturday has been quickly followed by a down-note, a la Cambridge.

It feels a little as though Wanderers are a ship taking on water, and while they have worked hard to keep the buckets going, you wonder how long it will take the crew to tire and the hull to start dropping below the surface?

The upside for Ian Evatt is that he does have a few extra pairs of hands on the way – Eoin Toal and Kyle Dempsey have been particularly missed, and if Carlos Mendes Gomes can get fit and firing he does have a genuinely adaptable attacking player who could cope with playing in either 3-5-2 or 3-4-3.

The manager has the backing of the board, who continue to take a pragmatic approach to the whole situation, minus the supporters’ emotion. They have already discussed January spending plans – and it looks like being another busy transfer window.

While their faith may not be echoed in every corner of the fanbase right now, there is still plenty of time for that to change. There are six games left in 2024, so the league table could make very different reading by the time we all travel to Field Mill on New Year’s Day.

Mansfield are next up, so flip a coin in the air and guess which Bolton Wanderers are going to turn up. I’m not sure even the manager could answer that question.