Turf Moor Diaries: The 4th Round Is Nice But All Eyes Are On Owen Coyle

Strange game, strange day. Almost from the kick-off, and certainly once we were two up, you got the feeling Burnley fans were going to be as interested in the post-match interviews as in the game itself.

Report: Milton Keynes Dons 1 Burnley 2

All the talk was of Owen Coyle and whether the Burnley manager might be heading to Bolton Wanderers. His only comment thus far, shortly after Gary Megson was sacked, wrongly attracted headlines saying he had ruled himself out. He hadn't. What he said was that he had a good time there as a player, it was a great job for someone but he was totally focussed on the Milton Keynes game on Saturday.

By the time Saturday came, the bookies had him as odds-on favourite and there are plenty of Burnley fans with enough betting experience to know bookies rarely get things badly wrong. There was no hard news coming out of the club, and conflicting views from those in a position to know, so a fair bit of concern and confusion followed.

Even before the rumours started, Coyle was a hugely popular manager at Burnley, his name sung more than any of the players. He is liked for his warm and outgoing personality, the style of football he insists on playing, and above all, of course, because he led Burnley to the Premier League.

If he were to leave for anything other than an obviously much bigger club, Burnley fans would find it hard to take, and hard to fathom. Bolton aren't that big, nor likely to become much bigger than they are.

Yes, he played there, and was a popular player whose goal got Bolton promoted to the Premier League. But if emotion was ever going to be the key factor in a career decision, he would have gone to Celtic, the team he supported as a child, when they made a move at the end of last season.

Top managers have to be driven and focussed individuals, and they would not make it to where they do if they did not care about their reputations. Coyle's reputation is strong. It would be strengthened even more if we stay up. But to be absolutely frank, if we carried on playing as we have been, but still went down, he would be in the frame for much bigger jobs anyway. I'm not sure the same would be the case if he went to Bolton and, as is possible, they went down, or even if they failed to improve markedly on their position.

This column may quickly become very out of date. I hope so, and I hope that it does so with the news that Coyle has no intention of leaving. He certainly gave the fans a big thumbs-up at the end. But the news that he sent his assistant Sandy Stewart to face the media afterwards, as he had a plane to catch to see his family in Scotland, will have done little to ease the concern.

At least we had a rare away win to celebrate. If you are MK Dons, the last thing you need in the first half is to see Graham Alexander stepping up to the penalty spot after a foul on Steven Fletcher. He just doesn't miss them, this one nicking in off the post.

Minutes later, Fletcher added a second goal after a terrific run by Chris Eagles. A fair few of our fans then opted to watch the game from the bars on the concourse. Some felt bold enough, despite the shushing of more nervy souls, to launch into the old "Jingle Bells" chant - "oh what fun it is to see Burnley win away". It's a while since we heard that one.

I was among the nervy brigade, having been in the uncovered away end at the National Hockey Stadium when the Dons first moved from Wimbledon several years ago. We were their first opponents. We took a two-goal lead, and drew 2-2.

That was the Championship and a lot has changed since. Our status. Their status. And their ground. As footballgroundguide.com will tell you, this is a cut above your average new-build stadium. Designed by the same team that built the new Wembley and the Emirates, it is one of the main reasons Milton Keynes surprised many in being named as a candidate venue in the event of England landing the 2018 World Cup.

When England last hosted the World Cup in 1966, Milton Keynes did not even exist. The town I mean, not just the football club. Current capacity is 22,000, around the same as Turf Moor. The infrastructure is already there to go up to 33,000. And if they are finally selected by Fifa, they can rise to 44,000 by taking off the current roof and putting it on after the rest of the seats have gone in.

It needed a bigger crowd and a closer game to get a real atmosphere going. MK Dons can seemingly boast the youngest profile of season-ticket holders in the country. But they have yet to find their voice, other than for a few minutes during the second half when their team had a few chances, notably two in quick succession half way through the second half which required quality saves from Brian Jensen. But even when they finally pulled one back you sensed their fear that they were never going to claw back a two-goal deficit against a Premier League club.

As the match neared its end, Burnley fans were back to talking, singing, and worrying about Coyle. A little group started up a chant of "if you're not going to Bolton give us a wave". I don't know if he heard. But he didn't wave. The final minutes were played to a chorus of "Owen Coyle's claret and blue army".

Earlier, I bumped into Sir Trevor Brooking, who admitted it was in part the attractive football we played that had led him to opt for our game on a day West Ham weren't playing. The talk quickly turned to Coyle's position. Brooking's a football man. When I told him we were due to play at Bolton later this month, he winced. "Ooh, that could be tasty."

Hope not. Not for the reason he was imagining. And that's a hope shared by all the fans singing his name as he gave them the big thumbs up at the end.