HOWARD Wilkinson couldn't have wished for a better chance to dismiss the greatest criticism of his career.

To ease the fears among the Sunderland fans whose emotions ranged from the disappointed to the apoplectic when they discovered the identity of their new manager.

But when his big moment came, and Wilkinson was asked if he had cast off the Route One cloak for good, he blew it.

"Are you trying to move away from the idea of a big man up front?" Wilkinson was asked. "As the game has changed, have you changed with it?"

The supporters who were hoping to hear a resounding "Yes" to both questions were left empty-handed.

"We've got to win and that can only be done in a certain way," Wilkinson said.

"We haven't got to indulge ourselves in any fancies at Sunderland. Sunderland isn't a laboratory for us to go out and prove that the way we like to play is the right way. At the moment, we've got to change what's going on out there.

"People talk about styles of football, but the style that Sunderland are playing at the moment is a losing style. We've got to get a winning style.

"People will read into that what they read. All I ask is for people to have an open mind, watch this space, and come back and talk to us in January.

"I've learnt some lessons and hopefully I'm a little wiser now. At the same time, there are things I've done that will continue to stand me in good stead.

"Why should passion and heart not be synonymous with passing the ball?"

Why indeed, and one has only to look at someone like Arsenal's Patrick Vieira to see a wonderful footballer who never takes a backward step.

Yet, as news of Wilkinson's appointment left Wearside dumbfounded, surely the least he could have done was to promise he had left the long-ball game in the last Millennium.

The 58-year-old is only too aware that he is seen as a relic of the past; a manager that time forgot, even, and one whose heroic resurrection of Leeds United was treated with the same disdain as Peter Reid's early work at Sunderland once it turned sour.

Wilkinson has also never received a fraction of the credit due to him for having the foresight to draw up plans for the Leeds youth system that spawned Kewell, Smith, Robinson and Woodgate among others.

But still he finds it impossible to lose the image of "Sergeant Wilko", barking at his Sheffield Wednesday players as they undergo yet another energy-sapping training run.

A former schoolteacher, Wilkinson is renowned for being a strict disciplinarian. Like former Middlesbrough manager Bruce Rioch, he has commanded fear and respect in equal measure from his charges in previous jobs.

So, how will he adapt to the Premiership in 2002, when like Reid before him he finds himself giving a team talk to a dressing room full of millionaires?

Wilkinson and Steve Cotterill smiled when they were asked who will be the nice guy and who will be Mr Nasty in their relationship.

"I'll be the good cop," said Cotterill, to which Wilkinson added: "Why should I change the habit of a lifetime?"

Indeed, though his verbal assaults on the Sunderland squad may have a limited impact on players whose eardrums are still reverberating after receiving repeated rollickings from Reid.

Wilkinson has twice been in temporary charge of England, and both times his reigns ended in disappointment.

Yet the complaints on Wearside about his arrival were almost drowned out by the groans at Soho Square that met his departure as the Football Association's technical director.

Wilkinson is a curate's egg of a football figure. He is feted at Sheffield Wednesday, whose fans would love him to return and work the magic that took them into the old First Division in 1984.

But look at how he failed to capitalise on the platform that he built at Leeds, and left them in a state bordering on disarray six years ago.

This will be Wilkinson's last job in management. Like the champion boxer who doesn't know when to quit, he couldn't resist this last shot at glory.

The question remains, however, which road he will take as he tries to lead Sunderland into a brighter future.

Will it be Route One? One sincerely hopes not - but Wilkinson's comments yesterday hardly inspired confidence.