You can't have
everything
Wrexham 0 Burnley 1, 11 March 2000
Firmo
One way to write a report of a game where
nothing much happened - like this one - is to find a hook, home in on a single piece of
news or incident. So I suppose the main headline-grabbing news was that Ian Wright was
dropped to the sub's bench. No longer were we "Ian Wright's Burnley," to quote
one less than hardworking midweek newspaper. But in fact, this change in the pecking order
was the least surprising thing of Wright's Burnley career to date. It wasn't half as
amazing as the fact that we signed him in the first place, or indeed, the fact that he's
turned out to be no good at scoring goals. What was significant is that there was no wave
of surprise on the away end. 'Fair enough' seemed to be the verdict of the masses as the
news filtered down the long queues this incompetent club managed to contrive for an
all-ticket game. Although a financial success off the pitch, by any objective criteria
this piece of transfer business hasn't made an impact where it matters most. If Wright was
brought in as a reaction to Payton's suspension, then he didn't remotely make up for the
loss of Payton's goalscoring prowess; it was ludicrous that he should then keep Payton on
the bench. Further, the Ian Hype-Hype-Hype has proved a distraction to the rest of the
team who, shot shy at the best of times, have looked less likely to score goals. It also
seems to have served to motivate the opposition more, both the teams and the supporters,
who have been given a specific focus for the general dislike most second division fans
have of Burnley. It was a brave decision by Ternent, but the right one. He restored the
attacking partnership which has done much to get us where we are this season.
But the game was less about the absence of
Wright than the presence of, simply, the best Burnley striker since Billy Hamilton. Andy
Payton is a man possessed by the single, selfish and necessary desire to score goals. His
determination to stick the ball away was to prove the difference here, as it has so many
times. The goal we scored to take an early lead summed up the attributes of our attack.
Cooke got the ball wide, beat their man for speed and banged in an excellent early cross.
Payton was there, where we expect him to be, using a smart change of speed and direction
to beat the defence, rising to head, with just the goalkeeper to beat. Agonisingly, it was
onto the bar. But Payton doesn't let something like that get in his way. Where other
players might have held their heads, Payton got his to the rebound and stuck it away, as
he had 199 times before, and for the 20th time this season.
He drove the point home by tearing off his
Burnley shirt to reveal a vest with the words '200 goals' and 'Natural Born Claret'
written on it. I love this kind of arrogance. He must have expected to score when he put
that on, but then, he always does expect to score. We'd be mad if we didn't do everything
in our power to keep this Natural Born Striker. If we want to score goals and win games,
Payton must be in the team.
I was a little surprised that he didn't get
booked, particularly as FIFA passed a very important directive about this and the referee
was our old friend W C Burns (now calling himself Bill Burns in a bid to appear cuddly),
but Burns had clearly come for a nice stroll round in the afternoon sun and was pretty
non-interventionist.
For the rest of the first half we weren't bad,
without looking like we were trying too hard to do anything as audacious as score a second
goal. I can't think why we don't try to turn a 1-0 lead into a 2-0, as this seems to me
the best way of ensuring we get the points, but we don't: six of our seven league and cup
away wins have been 1-0.
It was pretty incident-free up to half time. We
had a decent chance, which Cooke squandered. He was put through with a clear sight of
goal. All a striker's instincts here would have screamed to take a shot, hit the target,
force a save. Cooke took a touch, took it away and put in a purposeless cross. Shame.
Payton also produced a snap shot from nowhere, which was kept out by a save from the top
drawer.
In the second half we naturally set about
underlining our current inadequacies in big bold type. If there was anyone who didn't
already know that Smith and Little aren't 'wing-backs', that we defend way too deep and we
don't have a midfield, then I guess they know it now. Midfield is our big problem. Simply,
it is not up to the job. While in other departments we clearly have players capable of
playing one division higher, could anyone say the same of any of our midfielders? Ternent
made a start on tackling this problem by leaving out Mullin, a man who has contributed
nothing to the cause since January. However, such is the paucity of the options available
that he was replaced by Mellon, a player who opts out of games when it comes to the
crunch. Mellon predictably spent the second half hiding, save to blast one of those awful
long-range shots nowhere near goal.
Unfortunately, Cook was retained, at least until
the inevitable substitution. It was rare for Jepson to come on so early in the game - we
were settling for the 1-0, then - but Cook just had to go off. I feel sorry him. Earlier
in the season he was such a good player, setting up play and pulling the strings. Now he
is lost, out of the game, and here was one of Wrexham's main sources of the ball. One
moment in the second half that made me lose my temper with him was a Wrexham free kick.
Cook jogged around aimlessly and never got near the man he should have marked; the
subsequent header didn't miss by much.
He needs leaving out. A side pushing for a prize
can carry no passengers. Is there any point picking him in every game only for him to play
badly and be taken off? But who could have come in instead? We need more choices here. I
don't know to what extent the rumours surrounding the signing of Michael Thomas are true,
but we need something. He couldn't be worse than what we have now. And Ternent has another
hard decision to make. The midfield trio here - Cook, Mellon and
runs-around-a-lot-but-can't-pass Johnrose - are all Stan signings. They represent over
half a million spent. But they're not up to the job. The dropping of Wright shows that
Ternent isn't scared of looking a decision in the face. Here's hoping. It's annoying,
because you can imagine what a great team this might be with a couple of players who could
join up defence and attack and score a few goals.
Still, if you want annoying, take the woman sat
one row in front of us, who could be bothered to call us 'arseholes' for suggesting Cook
needed subbing but couldn't be bothered to open her mouth to do anything as mundane as
support the team. Funny that we'd got on her nerves, as she'd got on mine by spending the
entire first half sending text messages on her mobile phone. We generally try to give our
support by applauding, cheering and joining in the singing. I know this is recapitulating
an old, old argument, but if it's acceptable to say that such and such a player is having
a good game - Payton and Davis here, for example - then it isn't logical to argue that
people can't criticise a player who is having a bad game. If we pretend that everyone is
always having a good game, we're fooling ourselves, and we can't offer praise when it is
genuinely due. I believe that the fact that I shout and cheer and generally give the team
my support entitles me to express an opinion. Our otherwise silent friend clearly
disagreed.
I was later informed that she is an employee of
the club. Ah well, I never could take seriously the opinion of anyone who doesn't pay to
get in. In a few years time, this functionary's career will doubtless have taken a
different turn, while we will still be doing what we do now: spending too much time and
too much money supporting a club from which we live hundreds of miles away.
Back to the game. The absence of a core meant
that as the half went on we defended deeper and still deeper. Wrexham had no work to do to
get into our penalty area. Once it looked like we'd blown it. We missed a couple of
chances to clear a ball before it was headed in at close range. Fortunately, the linesman
held out a flag, and the crowd was quick to point W C Burns towards it. The linesman stood
his ground. That was as close as they got.
Burnley had no attacks to speak off in the
second half. With no midfield, we might have looked to the wide men to provide service,
but Little and Smith were badly employed. The grooves of this particular piece of vinyl
are now rather worn, but I can see no purpose in employing the best attacking player in
the division so far back that he has to beat two men before he gets over the halfway line.
I thought Little had a poor game, as it happened, but he so rarely gets the ball at
'wing-back' that he only needs to put in a couple of bad crosses to have wasted most of
his chances. At the other side, Paul Smith is not, and never will be, a left 'wing-back'.
He struggled manfully, but they sussed out he was a weak link and attacked him repeatedly.
At this stage in his career, you have to wonder whether he'll live up to early promise in
his natural attacking position; he certainly won't make it as a defender.
Still, the storm was weathered, and a rash of
late substitutions helped to slow the game down. Wrexham, for a lot of worrying
possession, had few actual shots, and Jepson plus West on for Little both concentrated on
getting in their way. Plus they fortunately had Kevin Russell up front. The other
substitution gave a late run-out to Wright at Cooke's expense. Odd, because Cooke can hold
the ball up and Wright can't. As someone said, it was a good substitution for the Wrexham
fans. Needless to say, Wright did nothing. People say he's starved of service, but Payton
has grabbed twenty goals feeding from the same scraps, and it was a bit embarrassing
watching him fall over and appeal a lot when he lost the ball. In deference to his
superstar status, the referee even gave him a couple of joke decisions, but I found it
frustrating. At this stage of the season, it's about getting points. It's not about Ian
Wright or anyone else's ego. It's about being sixth or higher at five o'clock on the 6th
of May.
We should be there. The optimistic prognosis
says that we mostly have to play sides lower than us, so we should be alright, us having
tended to slip up against the better sides, with one or two exceptions. Pessimists might
add the comment that, assuming we get to the play-offs, we then have to beat another side
from the top six.
We'll worry about that later, and at least we
know we can win away now. This game made it five in the league, which is better than some
entire recent seasons, and remarkably, three away wins in a row. Perhaps that was the big
story of the day. After all, three away wins in a row? Not since 1991/92, we reckon,
without being bothered to check the facts, have we done this. So perhaps we're being
harsher than we have a right to be. In the pub, this one was argued over as though it was
a defeat. Then we remembered we'd won. Results are everything once you've got them, after
all.
It is strange, though, how Burnley have started
winning away and losing at home. It's like one of those clocks, the sort with the two
people that come out, a man and a woman. Except you can't have them both at the same time.
It's one or the other, an either/or. And that's Burnley. All season we've won at home,
lost away. That was the model, and we got used to it. Now someone's flipped a switch. We
win away, lose at home. Clearly, you can't have everything.
We could use a new midfielder or two, mind.
Team: Crichton,
Thomas, Davis, Cox, Little (West 84), Smith, Cook (Jepson 72), Mellon, Johnrose, Cooke
(Wright 74), Payton. Subs not used: Armstrong and Mullin.
The home game
