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| Four of the ancient buses |
From photographs on the websites it looked as though some of these ancient buses had been put together with spare parts from scrap metal yards. There was the briefest of moments when we thought hmmm shall we pay through the nose for the £99 hospitality package but common sense prevailed. Money saved equals a week in the apartment in Kalkan in September.
I liked one post on the message board. It came from a guy in Bury electing to fly to Portugal instead. He could do it in less time than it would take to go to Blackburn via Burnley. Nevertheless nearly 4,000 Burnley supporters endured the ignominy and discomfort of being treated like criminals/children/illegal immigrants and made the journey. I can still picture the bestial behaviour of a baton wielding thug in a police uniform beating the hell out of one hapless spectator actually exiting the Cricket Field Stand after the Prem derby. Trouble is there’s an argument that if you treat people like criminals that’s how they’ll behave. Some of them duly obliged.
Instructions from the club were crystal clear. You had until 10.00 am to collect tickets but arrive at the car park after 9.45 am and you might be denied access to coaches and car park. Work that one out. It was a game between two sides both horribly out of sorts, Blackburn having recently lost to Millwall in an FA Cup quarter-final. And Burnley – well nuff said.
The webmeister hit the nail on the head after the Hull game. One manager brought players in. The other manager doesn’t know what to do with them. But truth is, overall, I have a bit of sympathy for Sean Dyche as he tries to get the best out of these players or sort out which ones are good enough to be regular choices. It’s become a big squad but sadly there are too many lightweights, too many players who are not good enough. There are maybe just half a dozen automatic names on the teamsheet. After that it’s perm any five from the rest. I’m no wiser now than the beginning of the season, as to what Burnley’s best team really is.
Mrs T, who knows a thing or two about football, said something similar when she saw the team, changed again. “I don’t think he knows which players to play.” In one area he has undoubtedly been unlucky, and that is losing Dean Marney for so long. This is a player that does the donkey work, the unpleasant stuff, the ugly, scruffy stuff, puts himself about, ruffles a few feathers – and takes the weight off other players. Every side needs someone like him – and when he is out there is no adequate replacement.
Thank goodness the blessed NHS changed the time of my afternoon appointment on the day of the Hull game. The first was at 1.50 and gave us time to get to Burnley. They changed it to 3.50 which gave us no chance to get to there. I shall be forever grateful. I groaned, grimaced, and grumbled all the way through the Barnsley game. I groaned, grimaced and grumbled all the way through the Hull dirge, but at least it was in the comfort of home with warm central heating, a half-time cuppa coffee and a morsel of cheese. At full-time we watched the last taped episode of Selfridge – not the greatest TV drama in the world but it served to expunge the memory of Burnley 0 Hull City 1 that we’d squirmed through.
There was just one Burnley shot worthy of the name by Wallace. There wasn’t one occasion when a winger beat his man, got to the by-line and whipped a cross over. What wingers – do we have any with pace and trickery? There wasn’t one occasion when Charlie wasn’t struggling. An £8million player looked like an £80,000 player. There wasn’t one occasion when I could see why the new loan lad had been brought in and was any better than players here already. There were only fleeting occasions when I saw any threat, drive, passion, will-to-win, or a serious goal threat. Pace and flair was totally absent. I’d rather see one of the young kids given a go than the pedestrian Edgar who is a good, dependable, stopper centre back and nothing else. And if the manager says we are creating something for next season, then why bring back Duff, faithful servant that he has been. Long has been a plus of the last few weeks, developing his game, improving, gaining experience. So has Lafferty who has the capacity to get up and down the flank. Sure his passing can sometimes go awry, but give him games, let him get better. Give Mee a go in midfield; he can pass a ball and tackle (bit too much at Blackburn alas), or Mills a player who knows how to get forward but is now the forgotten man. They cannot do worse than some of the lumbering stuff we have seen there recently. If we are looking to lay foundations for next season then along with Long and Lafferty, Ings has to be given a decent run of games to enable him to develop an end product to go on the end of his trickery and pace.
Dyche says that in the final third the players lack freedom and effervescence. From what I’ve seen there haven’t been enough of them to actually get into the final third to create any pressure and fear in the opposition. Too often there’s been nowhere to go when they’ve got there. Just the once at Charlton and that was a one-off rocket shot that brought three invaluable points. Too often anybody in the final third has been simply closed down and shut out, or ended up in a blind alley. The Hull defenders had the forwards in their pockets all night. Freedom and effervescence comes from players who have speed of movement and speed of thought, quick reactions, a real football brain, flair and ability. These are things in short supply at the minute. Perhaps the club dieticians should prescribe a dose of Andrews Liver Salts if they want effervescence. It sure works for me. I have no problems with movements.
After Hull it was three goals scored in the previous seven games; and the next game - Blackburn away, a daunting thought. The word ‘expectations’ has been used a fair bit of late with Leighton James commenting that players should rise to expectations not be weighed down by them. Supporter expectations should be a spur, keep players on their toes, and keep them giving 100%. Expectations shouldn’t be the excuse used to introduce the ‘fear-factor.’ For the record, we don’t demand a top six place; we don’t expect Barcelona type football every week; we don’t presume that having been a Premiership side once it can ever happen again. We are not unrealistic; but we would like to think that we might just win another game this season especially at home. And yet this is Burnley, dear old capricious, inconsistent, and unpredictable Burnley; how like them it would have been to have gone to Ewood and pinched it 1–0.
They didn’t but so very nearly did. Football is so cruel. My comments about Mee being able to tackle were a bit premature perhaps. His rash tackles cost him a red card, and possibly Burnley the win. Lafferty came on to fill the left-back slot, but alas Dunn was in acres of space to fire home with not a full-back in sight. Until then Burnley were ahead with a thoroughly deserved Shackell goal and well in control of the game showing skill, application and all the passion so sadly lacking in the Hull game. Blackburn were just nonentities until the sending off and predictably then came more and more into the game. But even so Grant had barely a shot to keep out until deep into injury time when Dunn of all people scored the equaliser.
There was a symmetry about the result as it mirrored the game at Burnley; there it was Burnley who equalised in the final minute. Sod’s Law though. They deserved to win both games but didn’t and after this instead of being a comfortable 9 points clear of the bottom three, were still not quite out of the woods.
But what a different Herculean kind of display this was than the awful stuff we have seen of late with the Five-Live radio team fulsome with their praise for Burnley. I held back from sending the piece I’d done after the Hull game it was so gloomy and critical, deciding to wait until after the Blackburn game. Bits of it remain in this diary piece whilst whole angry chunks were taken out. After this near victory it just seemed churlish to include some of the pretty severe stuff that was in there. The Blackburn show was massively better; the players without question redeemed themselves. Dyche had shaken things up again dispensing with Edgar and Treacy, so ineffective against Hull. But still the question remains, will this side ever score more than one goal in a game again and it was another game without a win making it just one win in the last ten games. Years ago Danny Blanchflower used to talk about moral-victories but this one shouldn’t mask the problems that still remain.
Appleton’s charmless comments about the result after the game were totally jaw-dropping: ‘I hope it’s damaging to Burnley and I hope it feels like the worst result they’ve ever had.’ You might expect something like this from the worst plonker of a supporter with a brain the size of a peanut, but from a manager something just a little more gracious might be in order.
Exactly what kind of moronic garbage was it… is he a man to be listened to… or just a hugely frustrated bloke trying to score cheap points with supporters who despite the euphoria of a late equaliser (you’d have thought they’d won the Cup), nevertheless saw their clueless side, poor for weeks and clearly in the danger zone, outclassed for most of the game. It was an utterly crass comment. I suspect Agent Appleton will be another name to be vilified by Blackburn supporters and shortly to be added to the list of failures at Chickenwood.
And of course someone let a chicken loose onto the pitch. Perhaps it had been stuffed up someone’s jumper for too long. The poor thing looked half-dead, a bit like the Blackburn side at that point. At least it was funny. Less so was the trashing of toilets in the Burnley end. Makes the bus routine a certainty for another year I suppose. But what next – will police or the SAS actually be on duty on the buses, with some buses reportedly returning with shattered windows; who’s to say that some bus companies will even want to continue with this annual outing?
Dyche was understandably proud of the players but claimed that Dunn’s goal was scored from a position 2 yards offside. Shackell and McCann were men of the match according to reports. Blackburn MOTM sponsors chose Dunn. By coincidence on my recent travels in Australia I learned that the name of an outside lavatory over there is a Dunny – funny that.
* - This article was written before the news from Ewood Park yesterday that confirmed Michael Appleton had lost his position as manager.