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"That's two days on the run you've won," said Stelling after the second day. "That's more than Burnley have won." Gee that Clarke sure is smart and does a fantastic personal blog on fitness related topics as well. This is no ordinary 'no O-levels' footballer who can't string two words together. But, alas, Burnley were very ordinary, and nothing smart about the goals given away I'm afraid.
As the game began I looked across to the Rogues' Gallery opposite us in the Bob Lord. The most interesting guy wasn't there - Sacha Gaydamak. At Portsmouth he passed the 'fit and proper persons test'. Funny that. His father, Arcadi, is exiled in Moscow. The words Monty and Python come to mind. All fingers seem to point to this guy as the one who started off the decline when he sold the club in August 2009. Supporters asked where all the money went from the sales of Glenn Johnson, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Lassana Diara, Sylvain Distin and Niko Kranjcar. The administrator now in charge of the club will also have to find out how much was spent in that Thai massage parlour and establish if the parlour girls are preferred creditors.
This really was a good day for crowd watching. Not only were there the usual suspects (one being a glum Peter Storrie) over in the directors' box (not OUR directors you fool) but to the left of my perch in the upper JH, it was Ladies Day again in the European Suite. The scent of hair-spray wafted across, bling glistened, silicone sizzled, flesh flashed, the totty tottered, and the senior grand-dames looked - well, just grand. Apparently players now queue up or volunteer to be injured so that thay can be 'guests' at Ladies Day. Our Clarke would have no trouble arranging p-m-t-r-e-c-u in well less than 30 seconds. Occasionally some of them staggered out in their skimpy finery to watch a bit of the game, you could see even the goosebumps had goosebumps.
Kevin-Prince Boateng was missing from the Portsmouth line-up; he was one of the ones in the away game along with Dindane who had us in trouble every time he got the ball. Is he really a prince? That O' Hara can play a bit as well. They arrived having won just one in the last 26 away games, having conceded eight penalties this season and scored the lowest number of goals in the Premiership. And then they came to Burnley. You just knew what would happen.
And it did. And unusually for me I'll be damned critical of what took place. Mystifyingly, Eagles and Cork were left out despite Cork being man of the match at Villa. Eagles can exasperate, but he is urgent, creates panic in the opposition half, runs at defenders, and offered twice the threat of the almost invisible Elliott. Elliott is a shadow of last season's player and even in his best position, wide right; he was almost a nonentity in this game. Bikey had a poor game in the middle chasing shadows. His best position is in the back four. Cort is no better than Duff or Edgar. Both can consider themselves unlucky to be residents of the bench. Carlisle looked in need of a rest. And in the middle neither McDonald nor Bikey are naturally quick, mobile or athletic, neither had the speed to control the midfield, or keep up with things. Fox, after a stunning debut seemed no better than either Jordan or Kalvanes. Mears had an average game by his early season standards. Where were the trademark overlaps? Fletcher was neat, nimble, quick-footed, hard working, but what's the use of that if you miss a basic header that should have been buried.
Only Blake and Paterson had anything like a decent game; Fletcher too until that appalling second-half miss that was one of the moments that cost us the game. If a defender's slip or a goalkeeper's error costs a goal they are slated. So should a centre forward, who misses a chance where it would be easier to score. Where's an Andy Lochhead when you need one, or ironically Nugent, unable to play, who might have made a better job of it. The score was then 1 - 1. After that came the pantomime of the giveaway goal, coming from a penalty that originated from a straightforward throw-in from Fox into his own penalty box that caught both Jensen and Carlisle napping. The latter was caught like a rabbit in headlights when two Portsmouth players came out of nowhere, so that Carlisle, losing the ball, ended up having to bring one of them down.
Truth is, this was another day when Burnley just weren't good enough and bottom club Portsmouth ran the midfield and carved us open several times with swift and incisive play. They had a goal ruled out for a narrow offside call; a great shot hit the woodwork, the first of two penalties was saved by Jensen.
And what did Burnley offer - a few powder puff shots, a few free kicks off target, a bit of huff and puff, and crosses that James (wearing what looked like a dead cat on his head) fumbled three times but nobody was following up. Plus, and I'll say it again, a gift of a heading chance. To be fair, Fletcher had the ball in the net early on but was ruled offside. Subsequent replays show that he wasn't. Two clear offside goals scored against us at Fulham, yes we have suffered bad luck, but good sides make their own good luck, the saying goes, and we were far from good.
When Elliott and Bikey went off to be replaced by Cork and Eagles, the difference was immediate. There was creativity, fire, purpose, more pace; more intent and a really dominant spell - until the routine throw that led to the penalty. It was too much to expect Jensen to save a second. You could see the heads drop immediately for the remainder of the game until the final few minutes when there was a brief flurry in four minutes GM Fitted Furniture time.
The saddest sight was the exit of spectators leaving early, miffed, fed up, disheartened, disgruntled, clearly disappointed by this let-down of a result. But where does fault lie? Is it that we have too many players who are just not up to this level of play? Is it that key players are simply not what they once were? Did just one player have a bad day at the office? Is it team selection? Is it that the departure of Coyle had even more of an impact that we thought? Has Elliott well and truly had his day? For that twenty minute spell between the substitutions and the second penalty we looked damned good. If that was the case, then why was that not the team selected from the start?
So, Portsmouth took the lead. A ball out to the right, Burnley caught out; Fox too easily beaten, a cross shot that was going well wide became a lucky cross to the incoming player unseen by Carlisle on the far left. Bingo and 0-1.
But, immediately prior to that there was Fletcher's disallowed goal. I watched the replay several times and groaned to see that it was not offside, the match commentators agreeing.
We huffed and puffed, but then a route one ball was headed on by Fletcher to the lurking Paterson. Pato had his back half turned away from goal, just inside the box, and without looking, lifted/hooked/lobbed the ball over his shoulder, high over the advancing James who was off his line; a brilliant goal worthy of a Thierry Henry or Messi.
At half time the score 1- 1 and struggling as we were, by no means out of it. The substitutions on 63 minutes pepped things up but then the throw to Carlisle and countdown to disaster. He looked like he might have played his way out of trouble trying to bring the ball away, but Carlisle is a no-frills stopper not a tricky Ronaldo, and hadn't seen Utaka. Utaka attacked. Goodbye ball, hello penalty, 1-2; exodus of spectators… voting with their feet; dismayed, dis ain't good enough. All this in front of the team of the seventies, here for the day.
How easy it is to be emotive about a result like this. It's impossible to be objective when a scoreline hurts so much. But let's try this alternative report if I take my Claret hat off and pretend to be a neutral. How easy it becomes to write about Burnley undeservedly losing a cracking game.
Brian Laws must have been hugely disappointed to see Burnley lose at home against Portsmouth. Making the bold decision to play a 4 - 4 - 2 formation in this home game he saw his team do enough to get at least a point from the game. Make no mistake this was an action packed, event filled 90 minutes that was end to end stuff. Neither of these two teams down at the bottom of the table could be described as good sides, but they put together a match that was well worth the entrance money.
It had shots a plenty, admittedly several way off target, two penalties one of them saved, a superb Burnley goal, neat passing play from both sides, action, a goal correctly disallowed for Portsmouth, a goal incorrectly disallowed for Burnley, a good penalty claim for Burnley when a Portsmouth player appeared to handle (but the referee adjudged Paterson to have barged him); but sadly for Burnley defensive aberrations of the sort that have blighted their whole season. And, on top of all that a there was a Portsmouth sending off to finish off with. All of it end to end stuff, what more could spectators want?
For Burnley it was hard to fault the efforts of Paterson, Blake and Fletcher although the latter missed a good chance that on any other day he would have buried. If the return of Elliott did not quite work, the recall for Blake paid off with a display from him that was reminiscent of last season. Paterson and Blake and Fletcher broke down the left flank on unnumerable occasions but James made crucial interceptions to prevent any conversions.
The perfectly good Fletcher goal was the first of several key moments. He was not offside and beat James with insolent ease. This is not the first time that Burnley have suffered from a catalogue of linesman errors that have cost them crucial points. A goal then would have changed the whole complexion of the game, but immediately Pompey went up and scored.
Paterson's equaliser was as good as any you will see anywhere. Laws then went for broke and brought on the quicker Eagles and Cork instead of Elliott and Bikey. For twenty minutes Burnley were bright, inventive, upped the tempo and certainly looked the likely winners with Portsmouth on the back foot. But then came the moment over which not even the best manager in the world has any control when Carlisle lost the ball to Utaka and brought him down. This time, the penalty was converted. Burnley's dominance ended.
The mystery then was why so many Burnley supporters chose to leave so early. Although Portsmouth hit the crossbar, had Burnley converted their chances there would have been a far different scoreline to reward their industrious and deserving play and Fletcher's disallowed goal was a travesty.
Manager Laws must be scratching his head to find the answers, for this defeat was undeserved. But if individual players with catastrophic errors give away goals like Burnley did in this game, it is hard to see even Fergie finding a win from somewhere. The spectators who left early, or who grumbled in the pubs and on message boards, were premature in their condemnation. Burnley's fate after this game still lay in their own hands with enough winnable games remaining.