Halloween at Turf Moor. The lowest
league crowd of the season so far saw an edgy Burnley performance. In truth we barely
deserved to win, but 1-0 to The Burnley is becoming an increasingly common scoreline. Who
cares?
This game was rescheduled from 2nd
September, when Crewe had players on international duty. I think there have to be three
such players playing for their country before the game can be called off. Can anyone name
the three Crewe players? Of course, that day we had our own international goalscorer in
Phil Gray. Six weeks later, and no longer in the first team, the bench, the reserve team
or injured. Who cares? Let’s not be too cruel to the lad, though – he did score
a fine headed goal back at Bolton in August.
Lee Briscoe missed the game with a thigh injury, which
meant Graham Branch played at left wing back and Andy Cooke started up front.
The Alex were first out of the starting blocks, and
throughout the 90 minutes played some neat, attractive and incisive one touch football. In
the second minute Maybury went straight through the centre of Burnley’s midfield and
defence into the box. Well, that’s not strictly correct: the midfield and defence
parted and let him walk through. Fortunately Branch (playing the best football of his
Burnley career) slid into the box and took the ball off the striker’s toes as he as
about to shoot past the slowly advancing Greek goalkeeper.
Burnley took some time to get going, the best
opportunities falling to Davis (surprisingly), with a header cleared off the line, and
Cook, whose twenty yard free kick hit a Burnley player when goalbound.
Crewe were playing the more attractive football and you
had the feeling that they were going to score. Little was dangerous all night. While
we’ve heard that said many a time before, regrettably this was Colin, playing for the
Railwaymen. After half an hour he should have done better, when a one-two on the Burnley
right once more opened us up, but somehow he shot wide.
In retrospect it’s easy to see why Crewe are at
the wrong end of the table. Whilst they really outplayed us for large parts of the game
– and I’m sure they’ll outplay a lot of other teams – they lack a
clinical goalscorer.
Whereas we’ve got Andy Cooke. With Payton looking
off-form – apparently he’s still got a hamstring strain – Cooke came up
with a goal. We all know he’ll give you 110% effort, but I for one have thought
he’s not quite up to the First Division. I hope he keeps proving me wrong.
In our best move of the match Paul Weller got a good
right wing cross in, which was headed out by a defender just as Paul Cook was waiting for
a free header. Branch played an excellent left wing cross as the ball fell to him, which
was met expertly by Cooke. 1-0. A similar cross in the second half was again headed by
Andy Cooke, but this time into the hands of the Crewe keeper Kearton.
The second half was fairly nondescript. Crewe
didn’t really threaten and the two best chances fell to the Clarets.
A great run by Man of the Match Branch took him into
the box, eluding several tackles. As he shot, a desperate Crewe defender threw himself in
front of the ball to block it.
In the final minute John Mullin ran into the box; his
low cross ricocheted off a defender narrowly wide.
28 points on the board at the end of October! It will
take an appalling run of form to see us relegated from this position.
There's a
ghost in my house