Knight Watch!

From the Echo, first published Friday 17th Oct 2003.

WARREN Cummings has warned his Cherries team-mates to prepare themselves for the arrival of Leon Knight - the man they used to call Pele at Chelsea.

The pint-sized striker, who tops the Division Two goalscoring charts, will be on parade when Cherries host high-flying Brighton at Dean Court tomorrow (3pm).

Knight started his career alongside Cummings in the youth ranks at Chelsea and the pair roomed together during a pre-season tour to Italy two years ago.

And Cummings, who serves the last of his three-match ban against the Seagulls, has singled out the highly-rated 21-year-old Londoner as the league leaders' dangerman. Cummings said: "He is an exceptional talent and Gwyn Williams, the general manager at Chelsea, used to call him Pele because he did some unbelievable things.

"I think he used to get a bit frustrated in the youth team because he was playing with players who, in all honesty, weren't as good as him.

"I think he found it frustrating because he could do things which they could only dream of doing. That's how good he was. I fully expected him to make it and the biggest surprise was that he didn't do it last season when he was at Sheffield Wednesday.

"But I still expect him to go on to play in the first division or even higher, whether it's with Brighton or another club.

"There is already talk of Steve Coppell taking him to Reading and that doesn't surprise me because he obviously saw what Leon could do, even in such a short space of time at Brighton."

Knight netted on his previous visit to Dean Court during a loan spell with Huddersfield in 2001 and Cummings knows Cherries will have their work cut out trying to keep tabs on the diminutive hitman.

He added: "Sometimes people will tell you that if you are up against a good player you should give them a kick early on, but that would be the last thing I would do with him.

"He's so small but so fiery and if you kick him, he will just come back for more and more and eventually he will do something to get on top of you. The more you kick him, the more determined he becomes. That's the way he is and that's the way I remember him.

"He's good with both feet and he's got the best spring from anybody I've seen of his size. He's only 5ft 5in, but he must jump to 7ft.

"Centre halves take him lightly because he's only a little lad but he's got an amazing jump and we will really have to be on our mettle because he's a top player on his day."

Knight added to his tally of 10 league goals when he netted in Brighton's 2-0 win over Forest Green in the first round of the LDV Vans Trophy on Monday.

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