|
We'd had a good trip over, with an early lunch at the home of a member of the West Yorkshire Clarets, but there the good part of the day was over as we had to play second fiddle to a hardly impressive Leeds side for 90 minutes.
Eddie Howe named the same team that had played in the two Easter games but this time we never really got into the game. Leeds were on the offensive and in our faces from the kick off and taking the game to us.
We survived it with Brian Jensen really only having to make one routine save and then we could have gone in front from the penalty spot. Only referee Crossley will know why he gave nothing as Iwelumo was held, dragged and you name it by Andy O'Brien. Even so, we might have scored as the ball dropped for Michael Duff who saw his shot hit goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel in the face.
Had we got it and scored, then who knows what might have happened, but we didn't and things soon got even worse for us.
It was just past the half hour when Jensen was first called into any real action and this time he was forced into an excellent save down to his right hand post to deny Billy Paynter. It was top drawer stuff but unfortunately his next piece of action was to retrieve the ball from the back of the net as Leeds went in front.
Jay Rodriguez lost possession too easily on the half way line right out on the touchline. Leeds got the ball into the middle of the pitch and one pass through split our central defenders for Ross McCormack to run onto.
Two years ago McCormack almost damaged our play off hopes as we lost our penultimate away game at Cardiff and here he was finally scoring his first goal for Leeds after his move last summer.
Andre Bikey and Duff between them got it wrong and McCormack was one-on-one with Jensen and made absolutely no mistake.
That was just about it from the first half. We could have no complaints at the scoreline and we could only hope things would improve in the second half. Unfortunately they didn't.
Things could have got worse. In a real Burnley v Leeds tradition there were one or two someone agricultural moments and one challenge from McCann was so high it was frightening. It led to Neil Kilkenny leading the charge for the indiscipline Leeds who seriously over reacted.
I thought McCann should have been sent off, and I think Kilkenny should have gone with him. However, Crossley gave them, and one other Leeds player, yellow cards.
Leeds remained on top and we were again thankful to the Beast for keeping the score down. He kept out a header and then just got a touch onto a shot from McCormack that saw it hit the post. It was a toss up which of the two were the better save, this one or the one in the first half.
But he was keeping us in the game; he was giving us a chance to rescue things. We made substitutions and we made formation changes but in truth it offered little. The second substitution saw Ross Wallace come on for the injured Duff and led to Wade Elliott, taking over as captain, being given a piece of paper with instructions from Jason Tindall and then going round, player by player, to pass those instructions on. I don't know whether he had to eat the piece of paper afterwards.
In truth, had there been another goal it would surely have gone to Leeds although we did have one little spell where we got the ball into their box a number of times. Our best chance came from a free kick which Schmeichel tipped over the bar. There was a scramble in the box but in the end there was no real threat on goal.
Eventually the final whistle blew and our hopes were over. There'll be no play offs this season and it will be Championship football next season. The target of sixth place, set by the board, has not been reached.
I'm certain we'll be back at Elland Road next season too. Their chances of making the play offs look slim and in any case they are not good enough. On the day they were better than us, in fact much better than us, but they don't look promotion challengers.
Not many of our players came out of the game with much credit other than Jensen. Some of his saves were routine but two were exceptional. He was the clear man of the match.
We've Cardiff to play next week so we can still have an influence on the promotion places. It would be nice to make sure they don't get an automatic promotion opportunity but to do that we are going to have to be considerably better than we were yesterday.
The teams were;
Leeds: Kasper Schmeichel, Eric Lichaj, Andy O'Brien, Richard Naylor, George McCartney, Max Gradel (Sanchez Watt 89), Neil Kilkenny, Jonny Howson, Bradley Johnson, Billy Paynter (Robert Snodgrass 76), Ross McCormack (Leigh Bromby 90+3). Subs not used: Shane Higgs, Paul Connolly, Alex Bruce, Jake Livermore.
Yellow Cards: Neil Kilkenny, Eric Lichaj, Bradley Johnson, Richard Naylor.
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Tyrone Mears, Michael Duff (Ross Wallace 74), Andre Bikey, Danny Fox, Jack Cork, Chris McCann (Nathan Delfouneso 63), Wade Elliott, Chris Eagles, Jay Rodriguez, Chris Iwelumo (Steven Thompson 78). Subs not used: Lee Grant, Clarke Carlisle, Graham Alexander, Marvin Bartley.
Yellow Cards: Michael Duff, Jay Rodriguez, Chris McCann, Andre Bikey.
Referee: Phil Crossley (Kent).
Attendance: 31,186.
Footnotes
Last week both Brian Jensen and Michael Duff reached milestones and at Leeds it was the turn of Chris McCann who played his 150th league game.
Steven Thompson created a club record when he came on as a 78th minute substitute for Chris Iwelumo. It was his 57th league substitute appearance for Burnley, beating the previous record of 56 held by Graham Branch. Ronnie Jepson (55), Paul Weller (53) and John Mullin (50) are the other three players to have reached a half century of sub appearances with Jepson's quite remarkable in that he only started 4 league games for Burnley.