Sub not used
Oldham 0 Burnley 1, 21 August 2000
Firmo
Burnley made hard work here of beating a
very poor side. Oldham are a club in a steep decline, that it seems will not stop until
they hit the bottom. Apparently all is not well off the pitch; as we know from bitter
experience, this often affects what happens on the pitch. Put simply, they were there for
the taking. Although we got the win, which is obviously the thing that matters most, we
never looked quite capable of finishing them off. This is worrying, as I believe that if
we are to mount a serious challenge, we will have to demonstrate that we posses the
ruthlessness to put weak sides like Oldham to the sword.
We started with a somewhat makeshift defence,
with Davis absent and Brass not yet fit enough to risk. We therefore played something like
three at the back, with Armstrong as sweeper behind Cowan and Thomas, and Smith and West
acting approximately as ‘wingbacks’. I was a bit worried about having so many
left-sided players in the defence, but fortunately Thomas was solid and Oldham didn’t
really have the firepower to seriously test us.
No Glen Little again. That must have given
Oldham some encouragement. Not many managers would risk leaving a player of such obvious
talent out of the team. With skill at a premium in this mediocre division, I’d be
tempted to build the team around a player of his class, rather than marginalise him.
Still, at least we started the game with two strikers. Hopefully marking the end of the
single striker experiment, Burnley’s best attacking partnership, combining the guile
of Payton with the persistence of Cooke, was restored.
It quickly became clear that the only thing that
might stand in the way of our winning this game was ourselves. Oldham were wretchedly
poor. We scratched our heads and tried to think of a worse side from the last few seasons.
Possibly only Burnley, on occasions, could have given them some serious competition for
that dubious honour.
Our goal was fairly straightforward stuff. Paul
Smith, making a much brighter start than at Wycombe, played a speculative ball forward.
Andy Payton pounced. As on this ground last season, half an opening was enough. With the
defence wrong-footed, he flipped the ball over the goalkeeper and into the net. Half an
hour gone.
Over our pints earlier, we’d been talking
about how you rarely see Payton blast the ball. He places his shots. He doesn’t try
to burst the net. It’s rare to see him, to slip into football clichés, blaze over.
Despite the minimum of one injury he always seems to carry, he remains priceless to us.
Considering this, how odd it is that we didn’t pick him for the first game of the
season.
After that we could, and should, have run riot.
Andy Cooke missed two good chances of his own making. Both times chasing nothing balls
wide he grabbed possession and forced himself into positions of danger, but both times the
attentions of a covering defender led to him putting the ball over. Cooke is entitled to
miss chances that he makes, as far as I am concerned, and his dedication to the cause this
season makes you wonder where all those stories of him leaving came from.
Their keeper did well to keep us at bay, but
against that he should have been responsible for a penalty shortly before half time.
Payton was looming with serious intent when Kelly barged him out of the way. The
inexperienced ref saw no wrong in this, and not for the first time, even this early in the
season, we were denied our due. If I'd done that to some bloke in a pub…
The closest they got was a moment of panic when
Paul Cook headed the ball back to an imaginary Crichton. Our keeper backtracked,
scrambled, and just about managed not to put it in.
But no sweat, here in the inappropriate heat of
Boundary park: this game was ours, and more goals would come. Who knows, we generally
thrash someone once a season, so why not here?
Unfortunately, the second half proved to be a
mostly frustrating experience. We lost our momentum quite a bit. We were by now relying on
the fact that Oldham are useless. Passing got sloppier. Smith faded. Johnrose, after a
snappy start when he’d annoyed them enough to be frequently fouled, drifted out of
it. As Cook was playing defensively, albeit better than in recent games, and Mellon was
having his usual vague game, this meant we weren’t getting enough numbers forward to
support our attacks.
We still had chances, mind. Just about every
Burnley player was allowed at least one shot on goal. Cowan's attempt wasn't a mile over.
Even Thomas had a go. Then Cooke went for one ball in competition with their goalkeeper
and came off worse. He made contact, crumpled and was stretchered off in front of us, his
face a mask of frustration as the crowd sang his name.
The dugouts at Boundary Park are placed oddly
halfway up the main stand, between what would have been a terraced paddock and what passes
for the posh seats. This means you can’t gain a good idea of what preparations are
being made. All in the stand, however, had a clear idea of what options were available to
our manager now. As we clearly had the beating of Oldham and control of the game, there
was no point now in changing the pattern. Obvious thing to do was replace striker with
striker. With young and lively prospect Lee on the bench, it seemed an easy enough choice.
Ternent saw it differently. With Lee and Little
kicking their heels, Graham Branch trotted on.
And he was bloody bad. It was perhaps one of the
more predictable outcomes of the afternoon. Quite what Ternent manages to see in this lame
excuse for a footballer is an enduring mystery. Branch is a grade one tart straight out of
the Nick Pickering mould of crap, lazy, can’t-be-arsed wingers. I find it painful to
part with hard earned cash to watch a player who avoids the game. Branch is a non league
footballer who never has, and never will, translate his ball juggling ability in training
into success on the football field. I say now with complete confidence: Branch will drift
through this club like he has drifted through other clubs before, infuriating supporters
by combining undoubted talent with zero application, and drift on, in a diminishing
spiral, making no mark save the raised heckles of those who pay his wages.
Perhaps the worst aspect of his game, amply
showcased here, is that he fakes challenges. He has perfected the knack of running to
almost where an opponent is, without ever quite getting there. He'll get fairly near, then
tackle some air or leap and duck at a carefully chosen moment. It's not football. It's bad
acting. And no one is fooled.
I could go on. But the essential point
shouldn’t be missed. If we wanted to bring a wide man on, why him? (Branch seemed to
be playing vaguely up front but, you know…) Arguably the most talented attacking
player in the division was sat on the subs bench. How could we possibly ever not want to
use him? And how would he feel watching this pantomime dame flouncing around the pitch in
his place?
There are times when our manager risks looking
like he does not know what he is doing. Even if it is not the case, it can still be
damaging to give this impression.
Oldham seemed to take heart from the switch.
Here we were, with a 1-0 lead, choosing to replace an attacker with a midfielder. It
appeared to give them the confidence to come at us. Paul Crichton needed to make a couple
of good reaction saves here. Mitchell Thomas' outstanding role in organising the defence
also proved important. I may have to admit to underestimating Thomas. I was horrified when
we signed him. But in this division, he looks like a good reader of the game. He
anticipates well. He's often in the right place to make a block. It's a testament to how
quickly he has settled that no one particularly remembered that Steve Davis wasn't
playing. He was our man of the match for the third league game running.
Fortunately, whatever efforts in attack they
mustered were comprehensively undermined by their woeful inability to finish. Oldham came
into this game goalless for the season. It was easy to see why. On this evidence, they
could take even longer than waddle's team of two seasons past. Do not be tempted to wager
on their survival.
They could have snatched it, I suppose; it would
have been grotesquely unfair, but it would also have been our fault. We should have had
half a dozen. Sadly, our attempts at attack were now hampered by the one man disaster zone
that is Graham Branch. Perhaps whatever laughingly passes for his next training session
could be given over to a simple and straightforward elucidation of the fundamentals of the
offside rule. He was caught out pretty much every time. Once from a goal kick. It seemed
all the Oldham defenders had to do was wander forward and let Branch do the rest. It
wasn't much of an offside trap. It didn't have to be.
Once, we wished he'd been offside. It would have
spared us the agony. As their defence rather complacently waited for a flag - they had
become sucked into a routine by now - Branch found himself clean through with the keeper
to beat. As Kelly readied himself to pick the ball out of the net, our Graham took a
touch, took careful aim, struck, and placed the ball well wide.
Ternent had shot from his perch to shout at
Branch within about a minute of bringing him on. Makes you wonder why he bothered, really.
Meanwhile, with Lee and Jeppo on for Payton and Cook, we knew Little could play no part in
this game. Surely he would have taken this lot to the cleaners. With him apparently
dropped due to 'lack of form' after only one league game, and regardless of last season's
track record of brilliance, one couldn't help thinking how out of the game Branch, or
Mellon, or Cook would ever have to get before becoming relegated to the ignominy of 'sub
not used'. I could never have imagined that we might have a non-injured Glen Little
available and decide not to use him. When he leaves for a cut price (and how could we tell
anyone that we rate him worth £2,000,000 but not good enough for our team?) you'll kick
yourselves.
Oh well. Oldham didn't even have the wit or
spirit to produce the customary barnstorming finish, and despite a generous dollop of
stoppage time we made it to the end with no real panic. There was even time for Jeppo, on
a ground where he has done us some damage, to hold the ball up at the corner flag just to
frustrate them. (Unfortunately, he eventually rolled it out to Mellon, which meant of
course that possession was lost.) News from Deadwood Park was a nice bonus. We finished
the day with but eight league places separating us from our once illustrious cousins. But
I couldn't help being a little worried about the way we failed to finish a bad side off.
There are two schools of thought here. A popular one - at the moment - is that although
we're not playing well, we're still getting points and once we start playing better the
goals will flow. You could, however, turn it round, and say that if we play like this
against better sides we are going to get found out. I suppose approaching games at Bristol
Rovers and Preston will tell us how good we are. And I think a day might come when we'll
look at that damning phrase, 'Sub not used: Little' and shake our heads, and wonder what
was going on. Sadly, I suppose it will be too late then.
Team: Crichton, West,
Cowan, Mellon, Thomas, Armstrong, Cook (Jepson 78), Cooke (Branch-Offside 62), Smith,
Payton (Lee 84), Johnrose. Subs not used: Little and Brass.
London Clarets Man of
the Match: Thomas (again).
Links
- The home game
and this game last season
