How wrong can you be, eh?
The week before Christmas I realised it had been a
while since I updated this section of the site, and with my seasonal absence in the County
Palatine looming, hurriedly cobbled together some vague sentiments about the current
direction of the club and attempted to present it as a mid-season report. Amongst other
things, I said how pleased I was that the team were looking hard to beat, how much tighter
our defence was and how impressive it was that our disciplinary record had improved.
Cut to quarter past three on Boxing Day, sat cold and
bedraggled at a funereal Gigg Lane, two goals and one man down. Yeah, I’m really glad
I got round to doing that mid-season thing before the hols.
Since then, it is no exaggeration to say that our
season is showing signs of crumbling before our eyes. What was the land’s most
miserly defence has now started leaking goals with all the generosity of a latter day
Scrooge handing out his fortune. A settled team has been disrupted by a string of
suspensions, such that it seems that in every game we now have at least one player out
because he has seen one card too many. And our squad, in whose size I put much hope? Our
squad turns out to be not up to scratch. True, we have a large squad. We have a
substantial collection of ageing mediocre reservists. Recent suspensions have shown that,
when given their chance, these are not people we can rely on to fill the gap. What talent
there is resides in the first team. Even then, it is beginning to look like it may not
enough.
I still believe it would be wrong to carp too much.
After all, at this point a year ago the club was in a state of real crisis both on and off
the pitch. Now, it isn’t, and for that we should be grateful. The new Directors and
the Manager have both played their part, and for that, they deserve our gratitude. The
very worst we can anticipate this season is a finishing place of mid table anonymity, and
with three of the previous four seasons having been occupied with fights against
relegation, that represents progress. It will be nice to hold our annual staying up party
in February, or at worst March, instead of May. And of course, it may seem unrealistic to
expect Burnley to turn from a side battling relegation to one seeking promotion in a
single season. It might be desirable to give the team time to develop. But we don’t
have that time. There is a sense of urgency at the club, and there needs to be. We have
gambled on promotion. The club is skint, and yet, in the context of this division, has
spent more than most. Everything hinges on getting into the promised land of the top two
divisions and quickly, before the divide becomes too wide to be tackled. Once there, tv
and other revenues should help put the club on a sounder footing. The plan is to do it
this season or next. The bad thing about not going up this season, therefore, is that it
leaves us little margin of error: we must then go up the following season.
And perhaps it was ambitious to think that last
season’s losers could turn convincing challengers so rapidly. But then, think of the
run with which we finished last season. We never should have been fighting relegation, but
for a long spell we under-performed. Then from March, when we got the run going, through
to May, that was promotion chasing form. From the end of last season we carried into this
one the sense that we were really too good a side to be fighting relegation and that, in a
division that had lost Man City and Fulham but had seen nobody good come down or come up,
the time was ripe to have a go. Of the two versions of Burnley we saw last season, we had
every right to hope that the one that finished the season was the true one.
What is disappointing now is that we had appeared to be
setting about this task with vigour at the start of the season. Twice early on we led an
incipient table, and although we should be wary of tables early in the season, if
we’d been bottom in September we’d have been worried about it enough, so why not
get hopeful when we’re top? For us to finish not far from the play-offs might have
seemed admirable enough a placing in the summer. A year ago it would have looked downright
implausible. Now, though, it would be a disappointment. And perhaps that is unfair. But we
are Burnley supporters, and we so much want to believe, even though our hopes have been
raised only to be dashed so many times before. Expectations have been lifted now by a good
start to the season. It might be harsh to judge on the basis of these raised expectations,
but we can't help doing so, can we?
It is clear that away form has again become a problem,
with very few goals scored, and it seems that before every home game I find someone saying
that we need a win just to stay in touch. Any slide in home results will see us struggling
off the pace. If home form dips, we drop. The last such time, when we drew with Brentford
and lost with Scunthorpe, moved us from hovering around the top back into the chasing
pack. There we have stayed because, while not always playing convincingly at home, we have
developed the knack of winning there by one goal. Usually it takes an opposition goal to
get us going, and we rarely look convincing, but so far we’ve kept the home results
coming. If, however, the home form slips again, even securing the play-offs might start
looking like hard work.
Perhaps we shouldn’t criticise Ternent too much
for this, notwithstanding the negative tactics we often adopt on our travels. After all,
Burnley have been terrible away from home under a succession of different managers. But
then you think of those away games in early season, when our form was good but we played
defensively and seemed happy with a point. Remember Preston, Bristol City and Millwall? We
should have won all three, but wouldn’t commit to attack. Those now look like missed
opportunities. One away win is worth three draws. If we had gone all out to win those
games and won one out of three, we wouldn’t be any worse off. If we had won two,
we’d be in a better position now.
Ternent also seems to have his favourites. Of course,
all managers do. But you do wander what Tom Cowan, or even Paul Smith, must have done, to
go from first team to nowhere. The team sees some names firmly entrenched, seemingly
regardless of actual merit. Mellon gets countless opportunities to carry on disappointing,
while the lightweight Mullin is given continued carte blanche to waste the ball in ways
which would see Glen Little get slaughtered. Glen Little, meanwhile, as the best attacking
player in the division, has been neutralised by being forced to play on his much weaker
left side. This is a weekly gift to the opposition. It is clear that Ternent places a
strong emphasis on team spirit, but when results are going against us, this could be
mistaken for a policy of not picking players whose face doesn't fit. A manager who allows
no argument from players can look weak when things are not going well. Just because he
doesn't get on with a player doesn't necessarily mean that picking the player would be bad
for team morale. Managers should pick players they don't even like, if they think it
improves the team. The team should always be chosen on merit alone. To do anything else is
to do a disservice to the supporters who have kept this club going through the years.
At the moment, the consensus seems to be that we will
still make the play-offs. The problem with this, of course, is that all supporters tend to
think their team will win the play-offs. Three quarters of those supporters will be wrong.
We have a rose-tinted view of what the play-offs mean, because last time we won them. The
time before that, however, in 1991, we experienced just what a miserable occasion they can
be. The prevailing view seems to be that we will settle for having a crack at it through
the play-offs this time, and if we should fail, we would expect to go up automatically
next year. This school of thought overlooks one grim problem that recent football history
has taught us: sides beaten in play-offs, particularly finals, often struggle badly to
pick themselves up again the following year.
We are still at the stage where, by bringing in some
fresh faces and adopting more positive tactics, we can finish strongly and put ourselves
in contention for a good play-off spot, and even be poised to pounce if the leading sides
weaken. But the moment is passing fast. Money is tight, but we will not go up without a
better than average goalkeeper, a midfield ball-winner and a new goalscorer. Even if we
get them, we will still struggle to punch our weight unless we adopt tactics geared to
getting the best out of the players we have – talented, skilful players like Glen
Little, Paul Cook, Andy Payton and Paul Smith – rather than trying to force these
players into a tactical straightjacket that simply doesn’t fit. If we’re going
to make next season all about survival in the first rather than promotion from the second,
the time to act is now. There isn’t a minute to waste. We've come a long way
together. Let's not blow it.
