|
It all led to a very tedious ninety minutes of football with little excitement in front of our lowest Saturday home crowd since just 9,753 saw us beat Cardiff 2-1 in December 1999 during the promotion season. And it all ended for the Clarets with ten men after Chris Eagles was given a straight red card for an off the ball incident.
Owen Coyle made one change to the side that had played in both the league game at Crystal Palace a week earlier and the Carling Cup win against Oldham, bringing in new loan signing Russell Anderson at right back in place of Michael Duff who didn't even make the bench. Our opponents had a surprise in their line up with Blackburn's Paul Gallagher making his debut after becoming an eleventh hour loan signing. Gallagher seems to pop up here there and everywhere on loan.
The game got off to a very quiet start with Plymouth's intentions clear almost from the off, but they did get forward a couple of times and twice caught new boy Anderson out of position. This is worth noting simply because I'm not sure he made another mistake all afternoon in a very good debut.
Eventually we started to get into our stride and we tested Argyle keeper Graham Stack but mainly with long distance efforts. Chris McCann, on his 100th league appearance was proving to be the key man and he continued as he left off on Tuesday by getting in and around the box and twice coming close to opening the scoring.
The closest we came however was from a Chris Eagles free kick on the left hand corner of the box. His effort looked to be heading for the corner but Stack got across to save well.
At the other end Brian Jensen kept out a Steven MacLean free kick in strange style and that proved to be just about it for the Beast who was a virtual spectator for the rest of the game.
Half time came and it had no doubt been a disappointing half with little goalmouth action and hardly any opportunities and Coyle opted to change things from the start of the second half with the introduction of Robbie Blake in place of Kevin McDonald.
It certainly didn't improve things and the second half proved to be more disappointing than the first half. Plymouth offered absolutely nothing but we struggled to create anything at all and too often conceded possession far too easily.
Eagles picked up a soft yellow card from referee Michael Oliver and it could have been even worse as the midfielder appeared to speak out of turn. Oliver's decision was to call over captain Steven Caldwell to defuse things - all part of Brian Barwick's respect.
Oliver should certainly have taken some sterner action soon after when Paterson was clearly elbowed on the touchline in front of the Longside. He surely had seen it but he took no action against the player.
The game really was petering out. We brought on Ade Akinbiyi and a couple of minutes later Joey Gudjonsson for the injured Christian Kalvenes. But still there was no end product from the Clarets.
Then with just seven minutes to go Clarke Carlisle got away with an awful mistake as referee Oliver blew up. He gave the ball away inside his own half and it looked as though Plymouth had got us in some real trouble.
Suddenly Oliver stopped the game and all because the assistant was flagging like mad some sixty yards away in Plymouth's left back position. He went over, spoke to his flag waver, turned and beckoned Eagles before promptly waving a straight red card at him.
I think the referee had done us a massive favour by not waiting but as for the decision to send off Eagles, I couldn't comment. I've seen it written that he was sent off for using foul and abusive language, I've been told he kicked out at a Plymouth player and also that he elbowed him. I didn't see it and I've still no idea why, but the assistant was adamant.
We kept going and Stack saved once more to deny Joey with a long distance free kick in stoppage time, but by then we'd given up on scoring.
Ten minutes into the game someone said it had 0-0 written all over it and it was difficult to disagree. Plymouth weren't interested in scoring and we just didn't have the wherewithal to break them down.
We don't really look like scoring, we've got one now in four league games and that came at a time when the opposition were cock-a-hoop at having gone 2-0 up in the first few minutes of the game. Three clean sheets in a week is fine, but unless we start scoring goals, and soon, it is going to be one long slog to get away from the bottom of the league.
The man of the match really has to come from the defensive players in the team. McCann had started well but faded, Alexander did well again, but for me it is probably Anderson who had an excellent game at right back.
It's a two week break now, let's hope we are talking about the forward players when looking for a man of the match next time out at Nottingham Forest.
The teams were;
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Russell Anderson, Clarke Carlisle, Steven Caldwell, Christian Kalvenes (Joey Gudjonsson 74), Graham Alexander, Wade Elliott (Ade Akinbiyi 72), Kevin McDonald (Robbie Blake 45), Chris McCann, Chris Eagles, Martin Paterson. Subs not used: Diego Penny, Alan Mahon.
Yellow cards: Chris Eagles.
Red cards: Chris Eagles.
Plymouth: Graham Stack, Karl Duguid, Krisztian Timar, Marcel Seip, Chris Barker, Simon Walton, Luke Summerfield (Paterson 85), Chris Clark, Jason Puncheon, Steven MacLean (Rory Fallon 71), Paul Gallagher (Craig Noone) 68). Subs not used: Craig Cathcart, Jamie Mackie.
Yellow cards: Paul Gallagher.
Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland).
Attendance: 10,032.