I suppose it depends what you want from
football. I want success for Burnley. At the moment, success could be defined as promotion
into division one. I sometimes think that whatever it takes to achieve that success is
justified. By this, I mean I sometimes think that I wouldn’t mind watching a season
of dour, attritional, route one football if the end product is our long overdue climb out
of this division. Yes, at least once a year, and certainly always before the season
starts, I manage to convince myself that such an end would justify any means.
Fine in theory, of course. Until I have to actually watch us do it that
way.
Then I realise that I also want from football excitement, passion, thrill
and pleasure. And a season of 1-0 wins would leave me oddly dissatisfied. Watching Burnley
while living in London involves considerable expense, effort, time and personal sacrifice.
When I go to games, I hope to see us win, of course, but I also hope to be entertained.
The eleven hardest working, most honest players in the world can’t
entertain you if they don’t have skill, flair, and the desire to do something beyond
the ordinary. Watching eleven cloggers with their sleeves rolled up grinding out a result
can’t be anyone’s idea of fun. If you don’t believe me, ask a Chesterfield
fan. You know that feeling of relief you get when our games against them are out of the
way and you can relax in the knowledge that you don’t have to watch that for another
season? Imagine watching it week in week out. I suspect one day I’d turn back over in
bed at half six in the morning and decide to give it a miss.
This is not to say we want pretty but ineffectual football. I think
nothing is more frustrating to watch than good football played badly. We’ve surely
had our fill of that at countless away games. And players with artisitic pretensions who
end up only taking the piss out of their own supporters are an absolute pain. But I was
trying to write this without mentioning Graham Branch.
I also don’t believe it’s a recipe for long term success. While
I concede that it may be just about possible to kick your way out of this division, the
time to instil the right habits in the players to enable us to prosper one level higher is
now. They have to learn how to play the right way. We mustn’t bring the kids up
playing kick and rush. And we shouldn’t be marginalising as outstanding and still
young creative talent as Little.
Because yes, Little delivers the excitement I want from football.
It’s a pleasure to see a player doing things you know you couldn’t do even with
a lifetime of practice. I mean, whoever shot out of their seat for something Paul Cook
did?
It saddens me that we have a player with the extraordinary talent of Glen
Little and decide to make no use of him. It’s not as if he’s some unknown
quality. Indeed, I expect opposition managers are always rather grateful to see his name
left off the team sheet. For football is all about setting problems for the opposition,
making and taking chances, creating opportunities and forcing the initiative. Opponents
will be pleased to see Little out. It removes one problem, gives defenders one less thing
to worry about, makes the team talks easier.
Don’t believe me? Do what we do, and talk to the opposition fans. We
often meet them on our travels, and more often than not after the game, they will ask,
‘who was that number seven?’ Some people I know tend to sit in the home stand at
away games, and as the match wears on their fans grow increasingly anxious when Glen gets
the ball. You see defenders panicking, too.
And yet, despite the fact that he won a string of man of the match awards
last season, and was chosen as London Clarets player of the year on the basis of votes
taken after every game through the whole of that season, people still tend to class him as
a luxury player. They do this despite the fact that he scored more goals than any other
Burnley midfielder last season.
People have to accept that sometimes creative players will try tricks that
don’t come off. If they cannot accept this, then they do disservice to the great
tradition of Burnley wide men, encompassing players such as Willie Morgan, John Connelly
and Leighton James. Having attacking wide players running with the ball and taking men on
is fundamental to the Burnley way. Not everything these players ever tried worked, but it
was worth sticking with them because of the success that followed when they tried
something special and it did work out. Players like Little are charged with no less a task
than unlocking defences. This means they have to do things out of the ordinary. It
doesn’t always come off. It probably would be easier to play safe balls and not take
people on, as other Burnley players are happy to do. But how could we ever expect to get
anywhere doing that? I regard players who are content to play safe as the ultimate luxury
players. They'll never take us anywhere.
The secret of getting the best out of players like Little is to give them
more of the ball, not less. A percentage of what they try will work. Yet we tend to react
to a mistake by playing safe, and denying him the ball. Micky Mellon can go through a
whole game without looking for him. Our safety first approach to games sees us start by
playing defensively and taking no chances. But this is precisely when we should be giving
Little the ball and inviting him to unsettle their defences before they get into the game.
Sadly, last season’s track record counts for nothing. Little has been
dropped after just one league game of the new campaign for ‘loss of form’. Other
players have had slow starts. Mellon is one, West is another. Still others have been
positively bad. Oh dear: Graham Branch. But Little has been singled out for action, and
his fall from grace, from lynchpin of the team to sub not used in two games has been
dramatic. The suspicion that Ternent has players he likes and players he doesn’t
lingers.
It depresses me that Little seems destined to be one of those players
remembered fondly once gone. He could certainly play one division higher now. He could
also end up being the most expensive sale in Burnley’s history. But all the time he
is out of the team, his eventual sale price falls. Port Vale offered a million for him
last year. We said that it wasn’t enough. How could we even ask that much now for a
player the manager has judged as not good enough to face the might of Chesterfield and
Oldham?
I suppose the most frustrating thing is that, more often than not in the
last few seasons, we have had to accept that Burnley were not very good, that survival was
our aim, and promotion was out of the question. It wasn’t any kind of fun. Now, for
once, a combination of factors has us setting our sights a bit higher. We have a firm
bedrock of support. We have resources that, while never lavish, are some way better than
the poverty of recent times. We have a good squad heavily sprinkled with exciting,
attacking players. At the same time, this division is the weakest it has been in years.
After years of slender rations, it would be great to have one season where we have a go at
it. It could be this season. Glen Little could be the player for it.
This may seem an academic debate where things are going reasonably well.
Without actually looking good, we have made a steady start. So what, you might say, if the
games against Chesterfield and Oldham seemed to be crying out for a player of
Little’s class to come on and roast them wide? We still won them. If only this
nagging feeling that we are going to get found out, and soon, would go away. I believe
that we won’t get out of this division by not picking our best players. Time will
tell.
