Stan, what were you thinking?
Whilst promotion last year was somewhat of a
surprise, it could not compare to the terrific start made by the Clarets in Division One.
Halfway through the season, things are still going well, all things considered, and then
Stan starts to think. We burst into the division in a blaze of glory, even without the
mercurial Glen Little. Much of this success, I attribute to the relationship between Cooke
and Payts, the latter having notched double figures on his goal tally, and the former
working as hard for the team as ever. Then Stan begins to think.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of
Stan. He has rescued our club after Waddle’s best
attempts to ruin it. He changed the team from relegation candidates to promotion
candidates. However, he, like Waddle has bought in
his own fair share of deadwood.
So, Stan thinks we need a big name signing to
help the push up the league, and decides that it is another free-scoring frontman that
will do. In order to raise the cash, he sells Cooke to Stoke for a measly £400,000. He
sets his sights on new players, with the name Adebola talked heavily about. From the
moment Stan stated it was a forward we were after, we should have already have been
worried, after the monumental success of Phil Gray, the last forward Stan bought. (Can you
spot the sarcasm?) We pay Stockport County £1million (and they laugh all the way to the
bank…) and Ian Moore is unveiled as the first million pound player in the club's
history. Hooray, thinks everyone, it’s sure to be raining goals at the Turf now, with
the new combination of Payts and Moore.
However, the front two do not hit it off. Both
players are too similar, in my opinion. They both play as out and out strikers, who
perform best when there is someone to win the ball for them and play them in. Burnley
immediately lose all the threat they ever had in the air, and things begin to turn sour.
The club begins to lose more often and we start to become unable to play away from the
Turf.
Apparently, events off the pitch are seen to
transpire, and the relationship between Stan and Payts worsens, and the bond with the new
golden boy decreases even further. Suddenly, Stan realises what it had taken everyone else
five minutes to work out, that the two players were the same. He realises that what the
new golden boy needs is a target man to play off. (Wasn’t that the relationship with
Payts and Cooke?? A search begins.
'A Premiership player', Gareth Taylor, is
'rescued' from the Manchester City reserve team. He is taken on loan for a month. In his
first game, a magical night in the triumph over Fulham, he plays quite well, and indeed
heads the ball across the goal for Ian Moore to score the equaliser. Had a new partnership
to success been born? The end of the loan period approaches, and we go away to Watford.
Taylor scores his first goal in Claret and Blue, a scrappy, but nevertheless vital, tap
in. We win away for the fist time in months. His loan is extended by another month.
What I have failed to mention, is that he
doesn’t score in any of his first six games, and Moore, whilst seemingly playing
better, still does not manage to put the ball in the net at will. Throughout this time,
Payts is relegated to the bench and is lucky to be given five minutes at the end.
It seems obvious to me that neither Moore nor
Taylor is good enough for our club. Whilst Moore at least gives one hundred percent each
time he pulls on the shirt, Taylor seems lackadaisical in his approach to the game, and
despite his size, does not seem to cause the opposition much harm. Indeed, it is Moore who
seems to win most of the headers.
The main complaint I have of the signing of
Taylor is that him playing has given encouragement to the less creative members of the
side to return to their favourite style of play. At the start of the season, we were
playing some of the best football that I can remember, with passing, movement and
interchanges between players, and it seemed to work. After Taylor, we returned to the dark
days of John Gayle (remember him?), as having the big man up front gave the opportunity to
players such as Armstrong, Ball and Cook the chance to lump it forward, long ball style,
to Taylor’s head. The days of flowing football, with Cook inspirational, seemingly
forgotten for the sake of a borrowed player. My, how we have suffered for it.
All this time, local hero Payton, a man willing
to give everything to the club he supports, is refused a start. He is not given a chance
to play with the big centre forward, like he used to with Cooke, because that would mean
dropping the Million Man. Even cries of his name from the stands do not seem to help his
cause.
It would be a travesty if in the summer, Taylor
is signed, and Payts leaves due to a need for first team football. Just look at what has
happened to the careers of the other forwards Burnley have sold so far. Alan Lee
can’t stop scoring for Rotherham and Cooke has been on the score-sheet for Stoke more
often than Moore has for Burnley. On a different note, has anyone noticed how many goals
Shandran scores in the reserves?
Stan, why pay a million pounds for a centre
forward, when the two you had were playing well? Would it not have been wiser to have
invested in a creative midfielder, with tricks galore, who could have laid on goals for
the forwards? The prospect of a midfield with Weller, Little and another creative player
seems an appealing one. Look at Fulham, and how many creative midfielders they have.
Now that we are safe and in the division next
season, in the summer Stan will be thinking again. I only hope that he thinks a lot
harder, and plumps to bring in more quality, like he did with Ian Cox, and not make the
same mistakes that he did with Armstrong, Taylor, Mellon and West.
The way we are playing at the moment, we are
definitely not Taylor made for Moore success. Stan, think about this: Don’t sign
Taylor, and don’t be afraid to drop Moore!
Tommy
D
May 2001
