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Who needs enemies?
Thoughts on the premature end of the season
How disappointing was this?
It’s probably just as well that I didn’t have an opportunity to scribble down a few thoughts last Sunday night. Of necessity, the hours after the final whistle were spent drinking beer and making the trek back to London. This was probably a small mercy. I’m generally supportive of instant, spontaneous reactions - I think we’ll do more of that next season - but on this occasion anything I might have written that night would have reeked of bitter, rancid disappointment. Now I’d be beginning to regret it.
Not that the disappointment doesn’t linger. I was surprised, indeed, at how disappointed I felt on the day. Knowing - being unable to believe otherwise - that we had blown it before last Sunday, particularly at Grimsby, I hadn’t been able to feel nerves. We’ve done this last game of the season thing before, and we know what it feels like. I can’t sleep the night before, can’t focus on anything else, and when the game starts, I can’t breathe. Not so this time. Only the alarm interrupted the night's sleep, the weekend’s conversation free ranged and on Sunday I took my upper tier seat with lungfuls of fresh air. Oddly enough, I only got nervous after we’d scored. For a few minutes it actually looked like we might do it after all. It was only then that I thought about taking up smoking.
But reality quickly reasserted itself. Stockport, down to ten, weren’t going to hold Norwich to one goal. Millwall would get the point they needed against a relaxed Grimsby (who we had done our best to relax). Now Birmingham we might have hoped to blow it - if I pinned my hopes on anyone it was them - but against that always get to the play-offs, if only for the purpose of entertaining us all with their exit. So they duly eased past a Sheffield United side more concerned with flight departure times than League points. It was surprising that all the sides chasing play-off places won, but against that, they were all playing at home, none of them were playing teams that needed anything, and it happens.
So, when at roughly five to four the music stopped, we were the ones who missed out on a chair. After being a top six side just about all season, this was cruel. Missing out by the tiny margin of a goal was crueller still. But, was pointed out time after time this season, league tables don’t have footnotes. You don't get points for artistic impression, or for playing much better in a second half when you're 3-0 down at half time. Results matter, goals matter, and where you finish after 46 games is where you deserve to be.
Where did it go wrong?
People were quick to point to those two Gascoigne free kicks, but it wasn’t about the game against Coventry. I thought we played pretty well in the circumstances, and certainly much better than we had in the weeks before. And that’s the trouble: it wasn’t against Coventry that sixth spot was lost; it was in the matches before.
You could spend the summer (the now very long summer, stretching out for months before us) agonising over the one goal we should have scored, or the one we could have kept out, that would have seen us travelling to the play-offs this weekend. People point to a couple of wrongly disallowed Taylor goals, away at Preston and at home to Wolves. Or what about Sheffield United’s late third, which seemed a detail at the time, or KK Man City’s last in our away collapse? It would be an exquisite method of self-torture. But I prefer to keep things simple. Why look any further than the week before, at Grimsby? That’s where the play-off place was lost. In an abject performance, spineless, gutless and lacking a few other physical essentials, we simply surrendered to a side expecting to have to fight for survival. Woeful defending and astonishingly inept goalkeeping made it so easy for Grimsby. And if we’re talking missed chances rather than conceded goals, how about the moment when Ian Moore was put clean through and shinned it wide?
That’s probably a little unfair on the players concerned - although in the case of Michopoulos, it's clear this clown's days should be numbered. Our collective failure started at Maine Road just after Christmas and the slump never really ended. There were occasional moments of hope - it’s always nice winning at Watford, and beating Preston was a fun false dawn - but mostly it was pretty rank. Lowest points were the abject defeat at home to an extremely poor Sheffield Wednesday side, the embarrassment in Cheltenham and the failure to turn up at Walsall. There were many more. Week after week we would emerge from another unsatisfactory result and express our surprise that results elsewhere had gone our way. You can call us unlucky for missing out so narrowly, but for quite a bit of the season, we were lucky to be fourth.
The slump was a long one, the trajectory of our decline precise, but it’s hard to put your finger on the causes of it. Which was the true version of Burnley, anyway: the one that topped the table in December, or the one that ended the season slipping from first to seventh? Perhaps we’re somewhere in between. Perhaps we surpassed ourselves in the early months only to underperform later on.
One of the reasons for this might be our thin squad. We’re short of quality in depth. We finished the season with players who had passed their best form, were jaded, or carrying injuries. They had to keep playing, because there wasn’t much else. With the interesting exception of Millwall, the sides up there with us have spent a lot of time at this level or higher. We, of course, spent a lot of time in the lower divisions, and you have to keep this in mind when you consider the gaps in our squad. We've only been here two years. It will take time to move from having a good team to a good squad. It's a gradual process of improving the overall quality.
What could we have done differently?
Against this, you may recall a lively debate on this website back in January about whether it was time to strengthen the squad. The key question seemed to be whether we could afford to do so. Well, we did, but we left it late. David Johnson was an instant hit and a star. I wish we’d had him sooner. Gascoigne was a gift that came along, a gamble that had to be taken, albeit one that didn’t work, but if there was a vacancy in midfield, couldn’t we have done something about that sooner? And then there was Robbie Blake, who we had hesitated to sign earlier in the season before giving in and paying a price we'd earlier said was too high. He wasn’t fit, and made no impact on our season. We’re told he’ll be great next season, and we certainly hope so, but what might have been achieved by using that money to bring in a player who could have featured week in week out since January?
Have we forgotten all about Papadopoulos, by the way?
So, we can point to signings that have failed to prove themselves, and signings that were only made once the slump had set in, rather than when we were up there and giving a fair impression of going for it. Against this, you can set the successful bargain signings of Taylor and Gnohere. But then there was the player who started the season in fine form but was left out in the cold: Paul Cook. When we found out on the way to Crystal Palace at the start of December that Cook had been loaned to Wigan, everyone was stunned. It sounded like a wind-up. Cook had played excellently in the early months. Whatever the reasons for it, it was hard to swallow. He subsequently came back and was given a new contract, but since then has featured little. It remains a strange decision. Did it cost us?
Did we all get carried away?
Stan isn’t always right, of course - that never was anything more than a slogan - but although we can point to his slips, as above, it’s important to have faith in him. However disappointing the end of the season has been, of course we must remember where we came from, and the progress we have made in a short time. Stan has achieved great things, and on that basis I must maintain faith and trust in him. It’s been horribly disappointing to miss out on the play-offs, but the two saps before him only gave us the excitement of flirtation with relegation to the third division, and I know which I’d rather have.
This season, we blew it, and naturally that’s hard to take. It was in our hands, and we lost it. If we’re apportioning blame, then Stan and the players have to take the lion’s share, as they got the bulk of the credit for the successes. I think the thing that is hardest to take is that all the good things we did this season ultimately meant nothing. Those ten glorious away wins - ultimately we didn’t manage to make them count, and that’s a crying shame. For all those wins on the road, we went from December to March without winning a home game, and that cost us. After some magnificent performances - who can forget our majestic display at Coventry, or our stirring win at Birmingham? - and heaps of truly great goals, for all it matters when it comes to August, we might have spent the season bumping along in mid table. We could have finished anywhere between 7th and 20th. When the fixtures some out, it will mean the same. For all that we nearly achieved, we start next season with zero points, the same as all the other First Division clubs.
True, we did better than most people expected - including most of us, if we're honest. This was supposed to be the difficult second season, wasn't it? When mentioned at all in pre-season previews, we were widely tipped to struggle. In the page they deigned to give to First Division football in their "definitive supporters' guide" published last summer, The Guardian described us as "on the wane" and tipped us for 15th. (Still, they did have Watford top, so what did they know?) That was pretty typical. The consensus was that, having had a better than expected first season, sides would no longer be surprised by us and we would struggle to hit those heights again, particularly as we had some old players and were perceived (wrongly, as it turned out) as not having made any significant signings. I was ready for and happy to accept a mid table season of consolidation. I look back at what I wrote last summer, and I said, "If we don't go down, it's another good season." So I got more than I hoped for. But against all this, the fact is that we were top at Christmas, and if you're top at Christmas, you expect to finish the season having achieved something. If anyone had turned up to that pub close to Maine Road back in December and told the gathered Clarets that we wouldn't even creep into the play-offs, they'd have been laughed at out of sight. We told ourselves, even after that defeat, that all it would take to make the play-offs would be little better than relegation form. Well, we didn't manage it.
Where do we go from here?
It’s over, the season’s ended - dreadfully early now we’re not in the play-offs - and there’s nothing we can do but prepare for the next one. But it's that relegation form that gives cause for concern. We ended the season badly, and there are enough precedents out there to give us something to worry about. The other side in recent years that did what we've done - top the table half way and not even make the play-offs - was Huddersfield, and they went down the season after. Then there's Bristol Rovers, who were pretty much the Burnley to our West Brom two seasons back in the Second Division - and they still haven't got over it yet. We need to start next season strongly and get a win under our belt early. If we don't - start worrying.
Against this doomsday scenario, however, we do have one or two plus points - namely, Barry and Stan. Steve Bruce's Huddersfield might have bellied up, but Stan's immensely more of a manager than Bruce will ever be. Stan's Burnley career is one of high achievement. Check the guy's track record. In Barry Kilby, meanwhile, we have one of the best Chairmen in the business.
There is nothing in the history of what Stan or Barry have done at Burnley so far to suggest that a period of prolonged struggle is ahead of us. Their time working together has been characterised by progress interrupted by the occasional setback. Since the day Stan brought in Paul Cook and Tom Cowan and was able put out a team with eight of his own players in it, relegation has been a word little used. And guess what? We might all know that this summer we need to strengthen the squad, ease out some of the older players and plan for the future, but you can be sure that Barry and Stan know it too.
Sure, a difficult summer for Stan looms. As the disappointment of missing out slowly fades - and it's hard this weekend as Norwich take on Wolves - our manager has work to do. Some of this players' best days may be behind them. There are areas where we need more. We need a new first choice keeper, cover at the back, someone to run midfield and David Johnson. All that together is a tall order. Stan has preferred to make changes on a gradual basis over the last few seasons, but now may have to make more wholesale alterations to his squad as he assesses what went wrong this season. All this, by the way, against the backdrop of uncertainty caused by the ITV Digital fiasco. It promises to be the biggest challenge since he had to sort out other people's mess a few years ago. Beside this, after just missing out this season, the desire will be to go for it next year. How patient will people be if we get a season of consolidation?
Oh well, whatever happens, life as a Claret has rarely been dull this last four years, and it doesn't look like it's about to starting getting so. For now, enjoy the summer - there's plenty of it. Last Sunday wasn't the end of the world. Unfortunately, it was the end of the season.
Firmo
April 2002
As with all articles on the site, the
views expressed in the comments section are those of the individual contributor, and do
not necessarily reflect the view of the Burnley FC London Supporters Club.
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