Point gained?
Notts County 0 Burnley 0, 3rd April 1999
Firmo
Time will tell whether this was one
point gained or two lost.
After the stupid goal fest that was Macclesfield
the week before, and with two of the division's worst defences on display, I suppose fate
dictated that we were bound to witness an uninspiring goalless draw. Apparently this was
Notts County's first of the season. It was only our second. Yet in this game of incredible
drabness, it was Stan Ternent's habitual lack of ambition which was to blame for our
failure to turn territorial superiority into goals.
After this game, we still need four wins to stop
up. We could have made it three.
It was strange, because we'd expected Notts
County to offer fierce resistance, and hadn't dared hope of coming away with anything more
than a point. But they seemed oddly uninterested in scoring, and looked to have little
interest in the game. Perhaps they think that, after their surge from the bottom of the
last few weeks, their job is done. They may be wrong. There are so many bad sides in this
division that it's hard to guess which will eventually go down.
We played either 4-4-2 or 5-4-1. It isn't always
easy to tell. Little looked to be playing more centrally than he ought, in a position
where he is wasted. Although he will try, putting him up front alongside Andy Payton to
fight for scraps is a gift to the opposition, as it serves to remove his influence from
the game. We end up having our two most naturally gifted players run themselves into the
ground with no-one to supply them. In playing Little this way, Ternent is attempting to
have his cake and eat it, to include a creative player, but force him into a straitjacket
where he can't create. We get the worst of both worlds from this. We get neither a striker
nor Glen Little at his best. If we'd brought some strikers into that painfully thin part
of our squad, perhaps we wouldn't have to do this.
Notts County's left back Dennis Pearce was
easily the worst player on the pitch. As the game dragged on, I wished we had the wit to
have a go at him and see what happened. We even had the means at our disposal. We just
chose not to do it.
I don't want to appear unduly critical of our
leader. I suppose putting anyone in to run alongside the workaholic Payton is better than
nothing. Ternent also made the positive step of dropping the useless Branch to the bench.
This was overdue. He replaced him with king of the lungers Lenny Johnrose, who has yet to
convince me that determination and recklessness will compensate for lack of control and
co-ordination. He has still to do anything that justifies his arrival at the club.
And in fairness, this was a point, and in the
face of some poor refereeing. It's just that all three were up for grabs, but we didn't
seem to have the sense to realise it or the flexibility to do anything about it. At half
time our manager should have reorganised his team, which had come to contain, and attacked
Notts County for the win. If we had, I think we would have got it. And yet it seems we are
incapable of tactical reorganisation except when we are losing.
The game was woefully short on anything we might
call 'incident'. (Is football still regarded as part of the entertainment business?) The
officials did their best to provide some. Little was booked for being on the pitch, and
then Payton was called offside every time he set off in dogged pursuit of another overhit
long ball. The only real moment of excitement came right at the end of the first half came
when Payton, for once not given offside, ran into the box, and while shaping to shoot
appeared to have his heel clipped by Pearce. Payton may have simply stumbled, or might
have been shocked by the unusual lack of a referee's whistle at this point, and a penalty
probably would have been harsh, but we, the crowd, are determined to do our bit for the
cause, so duly appealed. This appeared to rile the ref, who promptly booked Payton on our
behalf. Payton had done nothing more than look or shrug, and it would have been fairer for
the ref to yellow card the crowd for dissent, but he made Payton pay instead.
It was the easier choice. There were simply too
many of us to argue with. Our support was magnificent, proving once again that nobody
responds to a crisis with a show of support like the Clarets. Unusually, the top tier
couldn't contain us, and we were given the bottom half of the stand as well. We made a
mighty noise. The rest of the ground was curiously empty. Perhaps the natives, like the
players, think the season done and dusted. Meadow Lane is a depressing ground at the best
of times, and particularly so when empty. One of the first to be redeveloped, it used to
look impressive, but we got used to clubs doing this and later ones learned to do it
better. Now it looks bog standard and drab. The colour scheme of unremitting black and
grey adds to the gloom.
Yeah, we had much time to muse on such matters
of no consequence. It was also lucky it was a lovely sunny spring day, as the football on
offer was never going to keep us warm. The scoreboard clock only served to underline how
long the minutes seemed to be taking to drag by. Any hopes that we might at some stage
begin to open up were in vain. I find it fairly depressing to watch Burnley hitting
endless balls over the top to no-one. This is not the way we expect to play. I suppose if
it works and drags us out of this hole then it's justified, but I'd hate to think we might
still be playing this way come next season. If we do we may as well get rid of players
with skill.
Not that our allegedly more skilful players are
blameless. Paul Cook, who is said to have bags of the stuff, had his second consecutive
poor game. Another one to add to the ranks of the faded after initial good performances?
What the hell do we do to them? His willingness to hold up his hands to admit a mistake
ceases to be endearing when repeated throughout the game, and you find yourself thinking
that if he knows he keeps cocking up, why doesn't he try to do it better? His partner
Micky Mellon was, if anything, worse. He didn't play at anything like the level of which
we know him to be capable. Once, when through one on one, he unforgivably shirked a
challenge which looked more favourable than fifty-fifty. We need players with bottle at
times like these. I hope that Cook and Mellon will prove they have the guts required for
the challenge ahead.
It can't be stressed enough how little
opposition Notts County provided up front. Even Creaney couldn't produce anything near the
old boy's goal we normally expect from our league of rejects. He looked fat and useless
and was eventually subbed. It was sobering to think that County had bought four attacking
players close to deadline day. On this evidence, you wouldn't have known it. Crichton had
a quiet game, and didn't even get an opportunity to do his party piece parry back for a
goal. No, not even a chance to come off his line and drop a ball.
In the face of this, the obvious thing to do
after at the very latest an hour was to either push Johnrose up and Little wide, or bring
on Jepson for Armstrong. Instead, we waited until 75 minutes to replace Cook with Jepson.
Jepson came on to a mystifying cheer, lauded like a messiah. How our standards have
slipped. Anyone remember when he was playing so badly last year that his injury at Reading
was welcomed? Now it seems all it takes is a handful of gung-ho headlines and the crowd
are on your side.
He contributed nothing, but the other sub was
worse. With a few minutes left, the knackered Little gave way to the pointless Branch.
This was the clearest sign that we'd settled for the draw. For nothing other than idle
amusement we kept our eye on Branch to see how long it would take him to touch the ball.
The minutes idled by. Still no touch. At times he would come close, than hurry away. At
throw ins he would move near to the ball, then back off. Finally, with the whistle
looming, our hero got his head to it. Clearly, he'd got the scent of it in his nostrils,
for now there was no stopping him, and he got a second and final touch moments later. He
put it out of play. Somehow the game was complete.
People greeted the final whistle like a victory
had been won. We'll see. While not a bad point, the disappointment of our inability to
attack will linger long after every detail of this dreadful game has been forgotten. If
we're a couple of points on the wrong side of the line at the end of the season,
though…
It doesn't bear thinking about.
Team:
Crichton, Pickering, Cowan, Mellon, Davis, Brass, Little (Branch 87), Armstrong, Cook
(Jepson 75), Payton, Johnrose. SNU: Reid.
The home game
