Once, twice, three times a cock up – Burnley thoughts

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When Danny Dyer did his ‘I’m not glorifying football violence, honest gov, wink wink’ piece on Burnley fans he shot a piece on the Street in Burnley town centre, except it wasn’t it was at the top of Wallgate.  It could have been because he was too scared to walk the Streets of nearly Yorkshire, but chances are it’s because he was passing through and thought he could save some time.

He knew that he’d get away with it though, because, although people from Wigan and Burnley could tell the difference, to people south of Ashton they might as well be the same place.  A modern day Utterly, some generic, grimy Nartharn hole where everyone lives in the 1970s and on a Saturday night gather in the one house in the street with a colour TV wondering when Morecambe and Wise are coming on, what ever happened to that nice Hughie Green and who the hell this Simon Cowell is.

 

Certainly not the sort of places that fit in with the glamorous veneer of ”the greatest show on Earth”.

In another world (or another country even) this game would have been celebrated, two little men made good playing the establishment over the game, a triumph and a perfect example of how anybody can reach these heights with hard work and a bit of luck.  But here in the good ole land of the EPL it’s next to last on Match of the Day, and probably only because it gave the pundits a chance to poke fun at Latics’ first goal.

More’s the pity as far as I’m concerned, because if anyone had bothered to dust off a bit of the grime then they’d have found something that deserved a lot more attention than it got.  After all who, except their fans, want to see Chelsea stick five past Blackburn?

I’ve had, and will get, plenty of chance to talk about “Plan B(obby)” (and yesterday was another step forward on that front) so maybe it’s time to take a step back and give someone else some credit.  The last time we came across some old friends from the lower divisions things were less than pretty as Stoke third divisioned their way to survival.  I’d heard better things about Burnley and it’s obvious on this hour and a half that Owen Coyle has more purist principles.

I’m not about to cream over the football the home team played, but sometimes it’s the intention that that matters more than the application and it’s definitely refreshing to see another promoted team following the West Brom model than one mixing the and aspects of what kept Latics up in 2006 with cynicism and a strategically parked bus.  But as Tony Mowbray’s side proved, you need more than a strong heart and good intentions to take any more than plaudits come then end of the season.

One thing that you especially need is concentration and a knack of not gifting the opposition a goal…

If you thought for one minute that Hugo Rodallega should have passed on his opportunity following Brian Jensen’s slip, then you’d be wrong.  Jensen didn’t slip because he was injured; he got injured because he slipped.  Watch the goal from the behind the net and you’ll see that the keeper realises that he had no chance of reaching the cross and tries to change direction to close the striker down.  Super tankers come to mind, and the Dane’s studs got stuck in the turf.  Rumours of sprained pride are likely to be replaced by twisted knees and ankles as the week goes on.

… and if you do give one goal away then you definitely do need to tighten up and make sure that you don’t do the same again…

It’s possibly doing Rodallega a disservice to say that he was gifted his second goal.  His finish was a proper striker’s finish; it came from a lovely pass from Gomez and a well chosen lay back from Scotland.  But the Burnley defence was notable by its absence as they backed off and waited for the inevitable shot to come in. 

…From that point you wondered whether Latics might end up with something of a goal difference correcting win.  Until Owen Coyle changed his shape and personnel around and introduced David “I scored for England” Nugent.  The change knocked Latics and bought the home team some pressure, the sort of pressure that you want to make the most of and definitely not give a soft goal away…

I said a couple of weeks ago that football is a game of mistakes, some of them are BIG mistakes like the first goal, some of them are errors of judgement like the second, lots of them are the everyday, run of the mill, lapses of judgement like the one that put the game beyond doubt. 

Latics’ move was a simple near post flick-on, professional footballers must practice them a million times a week and essentially all you have to do is stick to your job, your man or (if you’re that way out) your zone and you’ve a much better than average chance of keeping the ball out of the net.  Let your man run into a couple of square yards of space and all the opposition need is for the flick-on to happen.  It did here and Bikey had left Boyce with all the time in the world to make his “clinical finish”.

… I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to take the gloss off Latics’ win.  The pairing of Thomas and Diame is becoming one that most clubs in the division will be jealous of and if Rodallega carries on then he’ll be giving the press plenty to rumour-monger about come January.  They are the stars of the show, and there’s plenty all over the pitch to be happy about, but it shouldn’t make Burnley any happier with how the win came about.  It might have happened anyway but, after going behind, Latics should have been made to work a lot harder for it.

for reference, here is Mr Dyer’s ‘blag’ 4:06 into this clip (sorry I couldn’t find an English version)





 

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