Gary Gardner stepped onto the Colchester pitch in place of Blackburn’s Jason Lowe in the 62nd minute with England leading 2-0 against Iceland in their Euro 2013 qualifier tonight. Barely more than half an hour later, the referee blew the final whistle and scoreboard read 5-0; Gardner adding two sublime late goals and a lot more to his growing reputation.

His first was an inch perfect free kick from 25 yards out: top corner, keeper stranded. His second, deep into injury time, was calmly stroked in from just outside the box in a more central position.

He’s certainly living up to the hype in his own calm, understated way.

We already knew he would be making some kind of breakthrough this season; he was withdrawn from the Under 20 World Cup squad and taken to Hong Kong for pre-season with the first team squad instead. His performances for the reserves and U19s in the NextGen Series since then have only served to keep his name fresh on fans’ lips.

We’ll surely all be looking for his inclusion on match day as the season progresses, the dark winter months will no doubt take their toll on the squad.

However, it would be prudent not to get too carried away. There are already many rallying cries for his immediate inclusion in the starting eleven. “What’s to lose?” some have asked. Well, quite a lot actually.

Last I looked, Chris Herd was doing a good job, as was the rejuvenated Stiliyan Petrov. Jermaine Jenas looked pretty handy from what we saw against Norwich and I know we haven’t fallen out of love with Barry Bannan so quickly. Even with recent transgressions in mind, it’s not like we’re fickle or anything, right?

There’s plenty of time for Gary this season, he’s still only 19 and has much to learn. As far as I’m concerned, I hope he’ll pick up a few minutes here and there, possibly being handed an opportunity or two through injury and/or suspension and will be in a position to force his way into the starting eleven next season in the same way Bannan has this.

I may well be in a patient minority though, I suspect the hounds are ready to be released at every team sheet that fails to include his name from here on out. Which would be a pity. Instead of genuinely enjoying yet another talent being promoted from the Villa academy – and there are more to come – he’ll end up being used as a convenient stick to bash an unpopular manager over the head with.

I say softly softly catchee monkey, what say you though?