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The poor performance started even before the players got out onto the field. Players who were not 100% fit would not be risked according to Stan – he would even put the kids on the bench if necessary. Not on your life.
With just twenty minutes gone we had been forced to make two substitutions as first Paul Weller, how on earth did he ever get onto the pitch in the first place with his injury, and then Neil Wood had to retire from the game.
And it was all pure farce as nobody down in the technical area was quite so sure what to do and poor Wood was twice forced back onto the pitch in ridiculous circumstances until finally there was some inspiration. That was Ronnie Jepson running up the steps of the director’s box to ask Stan what to do.
Lenny Johnrose came on for Weller and four minutes later it did look as though it was going to be Dele Adebola to replace Wood. It has been suggested that Adebola was not keen, seventy minutes might prove too much for him. We were certainly given ample proof of that later and it was Luke Chadwick who was sent on although he was to be there for little over half an hour.
By this time we could have been behind but for a good save from Brian Jensen with Watford seemingly content to see the score remain goalless.
That all changed though on the half hour when we took an undeserved lead and amazingly it came from a corner and then a Chadwick header. It was Chadwick who headed Blake’s kick back into the middle for Mark McGregor to head home for just his second goal for the Clarets.
We weren’t in front for too long though, the masters of throwing leads away were at it again, and it came via one of the usual sources. Stan’s words of encouragement for Graham Branch as a central defender really are coming back to haunt him now. He had a nightmare just a week after against Norwich and he was to repeat it over again.
I still find it hard to believe that he chose to dive as they got into our penalty box on the right hand side with no imminent danger. But he can’t defend, he takes the wrong options and this time he presented Watford with a penalty they should not have been getting.
Paul Devlin converted the spot kick and that was enough to send us in level at half time and probably we should have been thankful for that.
There was a change at the start of the second half, Ray Lewington and Terry Burton had obviously worked out that here was a Burnley team there for the taking and they came out and went for it.
For the opening few minutes of the second half we couldn’t even get hold of the ball as Watford made their intentions clear, they now wanted to win this game. Worryingly it looked as though we didn’t look capable of doing anything about it.
But with just nine minutes gone in the second half, and thankfully with the score still 1-1, we threw the dice for the last time and made our third and final substitution. Off went Chadwick and on came Adebola as Burnley changed their system.
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That was after another dreadful defensive blunder had seen Watford go in front. We don’t play an offside game but do seem to get ourselves into trouble often enough playing it. Up we stepped, got it wrong and then we had the nonsense of Branchy inadequately trying to get back and sort it.
He’d been booked on the penalty and looked less than inclined to make any sort of tackle that might get him in trouble and so Heidar Helguson just went through and scored.
You sensed that was it, you sensed that we had nothing in the locker to get back at them and although the statuesque Adebola won some headers there was never any real sign of a comeback.
A third for Watford was always the more likely and would have come after some dreadful defending from Mo Camara but Jensen rescued the situation. I’m certain that if the FA were to run courses on how to be a defender then Camara would be able to join Branch in signing up. It is certainly not something that comes naturally to either of them.
But the third goal when it came was down the other side when the impressive Lee Cook scored as Lee Roche just basically did nothing.
The stands began to empty but during the rush to get out we pulled one back through an Adebola header and could have got an equaliser as a tantalising right wing cross which first Johnrose and then Adebola failed to convert.
A draw would have been something of an injustice for Watford, they were head and shoulders better than us and looked to want it more.
There were so many bad performances on our side they are really too numerous to mention but as bad as the likes of Branch and Camara defend I thought the performances from Little and Ian Moore were outrageous, did they show any real commitment at any time during the ninety minutes?
Good performances, Mark McGregor and to an extent Tony Grant. There it ends.
I said after the win at Walsall that many performances like that and there would be no danger of us going down, many more like this and there will be no danger of us stopping up. The lack of players is going to haunt us, we had injuries and were forced to play injured players and it backfired on us.
And I haven’t even mentioned Lenny Johnrose coming on.
The performance was matched by the referee and you begin to wonder just how some of them ever get near the Football League list. On Saturday I can only recall seeing Steve Bennett once and that was after looking for him to see if he had given us the penalty.
This idiot was the centre of attention throughout the game in a ninety minutes that must surely have been his worst ever. He cannot possibly ever get worse than this. The one thing thankfully he didn’t do is get match changing decisions wrong, just about everything else.
This though is about Burnley and a performance that was poor both on and off the field. I’m not so sure some of those players could have been lifted but once again you just wished we could have reproduced the support we had at Bradford and Walsall.
Instead we had the goal music, flags and the whole fairground nonsense – please can we have our Turf back?
The teams,
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Lee Roche, Mark McGregor, Graham Branch, Mo Camara, Glen Little, Tony Grant, Neil Wood (Luke Chadwick 20, Dele Adebola 54), Paul Weller (Lenny Johnrose 16), Robbie Blake, Ian Moore. Subs not used: Nathan Abbey, Alan Moore.
Watford: Alec Chamberlain, Chris Baird, Marcus Gayle, Sean Dyche, Paul Mayo, Paul Devlin, Gavin Mahon, Micah Hyde, Lee Cook (Paolo Vernazza 88), Heidar Helguson, Hameur Bouazza. Subs not used: Lenny Pidgeley, Neal Ardley, Bruce Dyer, Lloyd Dyer.
Referee: Carl Boyeson (East Yorkshire).