No doubt countless eulogies will appear to the
triumphs of last season. All well and good, but we move on to 2001/2, and as always we
need to get our potential challenge into some kind of context. Next season the prize for
attaining Premiership status will be £20 million minimum per club per season, plus
"parachute money" even if relegated at the first attempt. The stakes are now
extremely high, and as the Preston chairman said, to move any business from £15 million
turnover to circa £40 million a year is a massive undertaking. I think we will see a few
massive punts from the reckless gamblers and already we are seeing some of this in the
managerial appointments made.
The appointment of Keegan to the City hot seat along with Vialli at
Watford has spiced up the next season a bit. With only three places out of the Division on
offer and three of the current season's play off contenders well equipped to challenge
again, with others like the Clarets, Forest, Wolves and maybe Millwall in a good position
to challenge, something has to give.
Keegan Spice Boy of the Fifty Plus Circuit
- The Perm is Back
As for Keegan, the secret to building up your points score is to
knock over the rubbish for six points home and away, take four off the mid table bunch,
and to not lose to your rivals. The first part may be easy but the challenge comes with
the latter. We all know Kev's teams are good going forward (2-0 England vs Portugal) but
poor at defending (2-3 vs Portugal). Apparently his response to the Portuguese comeback
was to scream "Keep believing" from the touch line. Kev's penchant for the
triumph of belief over reality lead him to pick Phil Neville at left full back, and Gareth
Southgate in midfield. "Gareth, imagine you are Gazza, keep believing."
Kev. has no qualifications as a coach, and is self admittedly
tactically naïve. He might find a challenge in Div One, as one or two of the wily
managers like Megson, Stan, Lawrence, Gradi, who are used to marshalling meagre resources
effectively, may have one or two plans for Kev and can gain an edge in this department.
Kev's trump cards are motivation and momentum. No doubt Kev will have them running through
brick walls early doors and this will go down a bomb at Maine Road. A few good wins and
the bandwagon will be rolling. If this happens, the main danger will arise when Kev goes
to the board for money to strengthen the team and their ambition won't be in line with
Kev's, through the need to balance the books. A situation Kevin has not encountered before
in club management. However, this is where the £20 million kicks in and City's
willingness to gamble.
For me question marks hang over his motivational myth, although the
moderate bunch of pedestrian talents at Maine Road might buy in to the dream. On the other
hand, the performance against Romania even stripped Keegan of his motivational clothes as
England looked fragmented, isolated and frightened to take any responsibility, leading to
Neville dropping the Romanian winger as he had no cover. Even Martyn was turned into a
quivering wreck. Frankly, even the Clarets could have beaten England that night.
Finally, I thought it was a disgrace the way he walked out on
England. Now he is saying that he is more suited to club management. Surely one of a
manager's main function is making correct decisions based on an assessment of the
information available, in other words, if he is so smart, why didn't he work it out
beforehand? The truth is he was flattered by the media etc. into taking the job without
realistically assessing his chances of achieving success, given his own self-admitted
limitations. Maybe Kev has been blinded by a similar wave of emotion into accepting this
job without correctly weighing up if he is equipped to do it? Plainly this is the kind of
level he operates on and in this respect is probably well suited to the City job. However
whether the view that City might as well get a roller coaster manager for a roller coaster
club rather than changing the culture at the club is more beneficial, only time will tell.
However if he quits after having taken them up to the Prem and
leaves them in reasonably good shape, with £20m. per club on offer, it could well be a
risk worth taking. Myself, I think that he will find club management at the top level has
changed. The lower Premiership and Upper First is populated with hard nosed safety first
merchants, like Gregory keeping Ginola on the bench, Megson, and Allardyce. Even Trevor
Francis came and got a nil nil at the Turf. Sad thing is, in their limited way, these
blokes are successful.
Buongiorno Gianluca
Strange appointment this one, Vialli at Watford. Even stranger
since it would appear that Graham would appear to not like it, especially as his buddies
Blisset and Jackett got the sack following Turnip's departure. Maybe the time is right to
go continental in Watford as it shakes off its dowdy London suburb image and goes the
Yellow Brick Road for a metamorphosis similar to the one that created Elton from Reg
Dwight. Vialli may see something we can't as he surveys the allotments, council estates
and redundant power station, but then it’s a Stanism to look through the bars towards
the stars rather down to the mud.
It makes me laugh when clubs like Watford, Palace, Norwich and even
QPR look down their noses contemptuously at Burnley because we have been in the lower
divisions a few seasons too many. Even Watford fans have now got pretensions with their
supporters preferring to take the high moral ground of their surrender of six points to
the brute strength of the Clarets. Myself I have seen enough ineffective fancy football in
the lower divisions to last a lifetime, culminating in Waddle and his bloody principles.
However one senses that Watford are beginning to get ideas above their station a bit by
pandering to this notion that a high profile manager can wave the magic wand and hey
presto, a pumpkin turns into a coach and horses.
No doubt the Forest fans were wishing they had a Stan, Dave Jones,
or a Megson, or even Bassett back to bail them out. Vialli was good when he surrounded
himself with quality players; it will be interesting to see how good he is at marshalling
players with more limited talents and working under tight budgetary constraints.
The Rest of the Field
Sensibly (for us) Coventry have hung on to Strachan, who in my
opinion is wasted on football management. With his deadpan delivery and razor sharp
timing, Gordon would be far better suited to stand up comedy, following his twenty minute
stint on John Champion's TV programme recently. His penchant for self deprecation
guarantees him a laugh and clearly he is a likeable bloke. Somehow he doesn't quite fit
the mould of football manager.
I believe that Coventry, after their long absence from this level,
will struggle initially to cope at this level. Even Sutton United beat them. Without a
good start, Strachan won't be able to withstand too much pressure and the end could come
following a home defeat to the likes of Crewe, Stockport etc. We know too well that these
sides have the capability of bringing it off and are like a pack of jackals hunting down a
sick animal. For Bradford ditto. As long as they have a chairman running the club and not
a manager, then they will struggle. No self respecting decent manager would take the job
under those circumstances.
Coming up, I think that Millwall will survive comfortably and may
even challenge à la Preston / Burnley. Rotherham will surprise a few people. I saw them
once last year and they play a refreshing brand of direct, but not long ball, football.
The aim is to get the ball up to the forwards as swiftly as possible, mainly routed
through the evergreen Robins, who is a terrific player. Their main problem will be keeping
the ball out.
Walsall are yet another small, well managed club, and their
elevation will make it a real pot boiler in the west Midlands, with Forest on the fringes
of the battle. With Blackburn and Bolton going up, leaving only Preston and Man City as
genuine "Derby" games, the five West Midlands sides should cancel each other out
in these contests, as well as kick lumps off each other.
Similarly, down in South London, three of the four clubs from this
area are in the same Division. All police leave will be cancelled for Palace vs Millwall.
I expect the threat of Wimbledon to subside as their decent players run towards the end of
their contracts. Without the revenue from TV, and the away fans, the party looks to be
over for the Dons, with the proposed merger possibly a thrashing of the tail before they
go the way of QPR eventually. Images of two drowning men clinging to each other spring to
mind. Only a bumper crop of youngsters and a reversion to shrewd buying from the lower
divisions can stop the slide. If not they will be rudderless, homeless and useless,
hopefully sooner rather than later.
The two Sheffield clubs may pose a greater challenge than last
year, with both clubs stabilising and gradually inching their way back. The signing of
Ndlovu and Asaba, coupled with Devlin, gave United a threatening look, and surprisingly
they played little trade mark Warnock long ball stuff in the 2-0 win in the penultimate
match. Wednesday may be happy just to reverse the momentum, and finish either top half or
above United.The presence of two more Yorkshire clubs, Bradford and Rotherham, in exchange
for the terminally lame Huddersfield, plus Barnsley, will create another series of hard
fought localised skirmishes.
This leaves a rump of clubs like Portsmouth, Gillingham, Norwich,
Barnsley and the division's tiddlers, Stockport, Grimsby, Crewe, who annually avoid being
dumped by taking advantage of out of form sides like the mid season Clarets. Conversely,
clubs like these ought to provide the majority of the fifty point cushion to avoid a
relegation struggle.
What the Clarets must hope for is greater consistency over the
season. The run of four points from ten games did not turn out to be disastrous in the
end, but with an average of only a point a game through this period, we would have cruised
into the play offs. Another problem is that of scoring sufficient quantities of goals to
kill teams off. Partly this was due last season to Stan's safety first policy, and partly
to the ever-changing front line up. The ability to withstand pressure by holding the
balance of play more in midfield needs to be addressed, so that we come away from
Portsmouth, and the Sheffields, with a point and not a 2 - 0 defeat.
I think that overall we will be OK. Personally I would be content
with a top half of the table finish, if it meant that we had potentially a better side in
the longer term given the age of some of our players. I would like to see the balance
shift a bit more in the age profile. Some may see this as lacking ambition, but I would
now like to see a steady build up of our strength rather than a surge that we cannot
sustain. Although recently Stan has made a habit of setting attainable targets, passing
them and sustaining the progress.
My fervent hope is to see the development of more players that we
can get REALLY excited about, players that we would walk the length of the country to
watch perform in a Claret shirt, safe in the knowledge that you are very unlikely to be
disappointed by a poor performance. Not just players who are good in the context of the
current division, but players with genuine top class potential, that we have not seen at
Burnley since the days of Steven and Phelan. After last season I believe we are on the
verge seeing one in the shape of Paul Weller. In the run in to the end of the season, Paul
produced some absolutely stupendous performances, epitomised by power and strength
delivered through crunching challenges, surging runs, selfless support play, control and
visionary geometric passing long and short, plus audacious goal attempts, like the
overhead kick at Norwich. More please, Stan.
Lastly the only sour note of the season was some of the reaction to
"poor performances" by individual players and, incredibly, abuse directed at the
manager. The boys have demonstrated that they are good enough to get in the top six and
are there or thereabouts; it is up to us to really get behind them and start believing
that what we are seeing is not just a one off fluke.
We are now bloody good First Division side. Now and again we might
have an off day, the performance may not be up to what we would like week in week out, but
was it ever thus?
Stan' s philosophy is that results are more important than
performances. Enough good results create opportunities like the one we had just recently.
The side rarely gives up and now they have understand that they are good enough to hold
their own and progress in this league. OK, we have to shift up another gear as well. We
are a good side, well managed and well run. Let's make them really well supported Away and
Home.
Have a good summer.
Up the Clarets.
