This was an entertaining and frustrating game. Entertaining, because we played some of our best football in ages. Frustrating, because we didn’t turn good play and possession into serious goal chances. We had all the game, but Portsmouth had the clear cut chances. Given that, a draw was a fair result.
A good number of London Clarets made the trek up north. Well, we had to, didn’t we? Barry Kilby’s decision to play the game at its scheduled time in competition with an England fixture made specific reference to the long distance commitment of the London Clarets, so it was important to repay that faith. We shall gloss over the fact that one of our regular contributors chose to go to Old Trafford instead!
We headed from the cold South to the warmer North via our new default route of Leeds. Virgin now allow themselves a luxurious four hours to cover the 200 miles or so to Preston on a Saturday morning. So we’ve jumped ship, and the sleek, shiny GNER train with working toilets and a stocked buffet conveys us on time to Leeds. It’s not without its drawbacks – Leeds City Station is more chaotic than ever, and no train can ever have reached Manchester Road station on time, but we now get to Burnley sooner and leave later – which means more drinking time. Plus, before and after, I get to return to treasured haunts in my old home city of Leeds. All this, of course, militates against accurate match reporting, but hey, there’s always a price to pay.
That said, when writing my reports, I normally try to chuck in the odd account of match incident to add some texture to the unsubstantiated opinion and bias. And that’s hard to do here because, for all the niceness of our play, not much happened in front of goal. Although Cook came closest for us with a shot against a post from Little’s pass, it was Peter Crouch who had the best chance of the first half. He would have scored with his header, but for NTG reminding us of the good side of his game with a flying reaction save. Ridiculously, Crouch raised his hand in a claim that it had crossed the line. It hadn’t. It was just a great save. Not for the tall one the sporting handshake of a Mark Robins.
It wouldn’t do to criticise unduly. Several players had fine games. David Arthur Gnohere was outstanding. In this game, he defended staunchly while always trying to play the ball, and once or twice he went on those mad charges forward in a style reminiscent of Gerry Harrison in his prime. He was brilliant. For once, the announcement of the sponsor’s man of the match was no mystery. This bloke’s already a star. I try not to get carried away, but he could go on to be one of the great Burnley players of the modern era.
I thought Grant had his best game so far in midfield, producing a lot of good passes, which Cook complemented with his usual quota of useful balls. Cox looked stronger at the back than the last couple of times I saw him, and West didn’t do badly. Briscoe showed some of his positional uncertainty of recent times, while Weller tried a lot of stuff which would have been great if it worked, but didn’t. Little had an in and out kind of game, closely marked, sometimes quiet, but still capable of wriggling into the box in that twisty turny way that can’t be dealt with. He still brought threat, although at times he hung on to the ball too long when it might have been worth a shot.
Nobody was really bad. It was just that, for all we had the ball, we didn’t produce enough serious attempts to score. Portsmouth should take a lot of the credit for this. They’re having a hit and miss season and they’d clearly been scared by some of the high scores we’re produced at home, so they came to defend, and they did it well. They always had a lot of men behind the ball, even when attacking, and when they got up, they got back quickly enough. Their aim was to soak up the pressure and try to get something on the break. They managed the first part better than the second, but they were hard to play against. Added to the fact that we couldn’t counter their attacks with sufficient speed – when you wanted us to break quickly, there seemed to be a tendency to take another touch – it made for an entertaining stalemate.
Along with this, their keeper was excellent. Quite surprising this, as I’d tended to regard Portsmouth’s £1.8m signing of a 5’10" Japanese goalkeeper as a bit of a joke. They’ve got a couple of squadfuls of bad buys. But I was forced to revise my judgement. He was quick, agile and aggressive. He threw himself at crosses and came for everything. At the other end, NTG provided a bit of contrast. As usual, he didn’t come for anything and didn’t catch, but relied on his reactions to pull off a number of excellent last ditch saves. Combine the two and you’d probably have a hell of a goalkeeper.
It was, though, a shame for the neutrals – of which there would have been none, of course – that Robert Prosinecki didn’t turn up. According to the media (you know, the people who don’t pay to get into games) we were supposed, as football fans, to be looking forward to a ‘world class talent’ gracing the Turf Moor pitch. Pity he never made it, then. What? You mean he did? You mean that waste of space in the number eight shirt was him? Oh dear! That player spent the whole game loitering on the fringes of play, maintaining a level distance from the thick of the action throughout, before being substituted. Looks like Prosinecki has not shed the habit which has dogged his career of only turning it on when he fancies it. Clearly, he didn’t fancy it here. It must be frustrating to have someone like that turning up and collecting a presumably large wage, and then not bothering to play.
I find it hard to put my finger on what isn’t quite right about the front two. Moore runs himself into the ground, but I am not convinced he is a striker, because he doesn’t anticipate. He’ll run all day, but where are the intelligent runs for the ball that might come off? Too often he’ll go wide and put himself in a position where, even if he gets past a challenge with the ball, he’s a long way from goal. And of course, he goes down too easily, while his tame backheel from close to goal betrayed a lack of confidence. You-know-who would have turned and shot.
Taylor, meanwhile, is accused of being lazy. I don’t think he is. I think he’s an unexceptional target man, whose game would not be improved by charging about all over the place. Indeed, he gets into good positions; it’s generally his finishing that lets him down. But he must be doing something right, because now he’s our top scorer.
It was a simple, and therefore good, goal. Cook’s long cross from the left came at speed and was accurate, and Taylor was smartly positioned at the far post to head home.
Unfortunately, the accursed Portsmouth trumpeter was not silenced for long. We do seem vulnerable when we’ve just scored these days, and Portsmouth came back. But it was a jammy goal. A bad shot bounced to the feet of Crouch. He must have been as surprised as anyone to be left clear and through, and sadly for us all, he just looks clumsy, and he didn’t mess up the finish. I’m told it wasn’t offside, as I’d originally thought. It was just one of those goals that was so unfair you think something must be wrong with it.
There was some inevitability in a player that had been booed and jeered all afternoon scoring against us. Must we really create another Kevin Francis?
After that Portsmouth put the shutters up and we went backwards, so the game drifted towards an end. We never offered a plausible threat of a winner, and there was an absence of last minute tension. There were the usual late substitutions. At 0-0 we could have done with Payton to make a go of a half chance in the way that Moore and Taylor can’t, but it was a bit too late now. Johnrose’s introduction was even more mysterious. What exactly would he offer? Nothing, it turned out. Oh, and Portsmouth substituted their ‘world class player’.
Game over, noting that Portsmouth were conspicuously happy with their point, we shuffled out into extra drinking time in Burnley before the start of the journey home. In mid pint in the Ministry of Ale (excellent as ever) I was interviewed by the Observer! Congratulations to them for bringing coherence to my confused responses.
I do, though, stand by my instant verdict that this was ‘a weird game’. We played well. We didn’t deserve to win. I always ask myself how many times we made their goalkeeper save. Answer: not enough. But it was entertaining, more so than I convey in the absence of decisive incident to report. There was lots of nice football played and it was enjoyable to watch. There have been days when you can say less than that, and there will be days when we’ll get a slice of luck like Portsmouth did and win when we play worse. Plus, in this daft division, the point moved us up from an undeserved ninth to a strategically placed fifth, which is probably whereabouts we deserve to be. Remember when we didn’t think we could survive at this level? We are going to do, with ease, again.
One final thought. In spite of the competition, the attendance held up, and the crowd was by no means the lowest of the season. I would suggest that it would have been lower than it was if the game had been moved to a Friday night or a Sunday afternoon. The club was, therefore, proved right in their decision not to move it. Let’s hope this sets a precedent.
Better than England