Strangely, I find myself cast in the unusual position as a lucky charm. Out of the five games I have been to recently, I have seen the boys win three and draw once and lose only to Cheltenham. I saw the win at Stockport and the two away wins in the midst of our subsequent dire run and the bore draw at Wimbledon.
Interestingly, after the struggle to beat Stockport, we drew at home to Millwall and at that time a journalist suggested, with astonishing astuteness, that the Clarets had peaked and were likely to fade away in the second half of the season. This is really amazing as it’s not often that a media reptile shows such insight and commits himself to print when a team are coasting along at the top of the league. On the contrary, there followed a great number of triumphalist “puff pieces” as Stan had been demanding from the media, like the one in the Saturday Grauniad leading up to the Man City game, and the rest is history. Just listening to that game on the radio, City scored from their first attack, Taylor missed a sitter and then Glen missed a pen. We were all over them again and then City scored again. I am not sure why I listened to the rest as it all had a certain inevitability. As the rest of the season unfolded it began to look as if Mr Insightful’s predictions may be true.
Since Burnley had their colours lowered so emphatically, and it’s no good going on about our “performance”, the wheels have well and truly come off the wagon. To me, losing 5–1 is a bad performance and I fail to see how anyone can draw comfort from the fact that on the day we played “well” and some “good“ football. Every time they went forward they scored and we camped in their half at times and didn’t. What’s so good about that?
Last season we managed to get the wheels back on again when we signed Gareth Taylor on loan, but this season, Stan having spent £2.5 million on an assorted bunch of partners for the big man, we are no closer to having a deadly strike force, especially with Blake’s arrival turning out to be a major flop. The signing of Gazza might be the catalyst we need but the dismal Presbyterian Walter Smith has seemingly held him to his contract.
Ironically, Stan’s amazing deals in the free transfer market have been counterbalanced with the players he actually spends money on. The more you pay, the bigger the risk I suppose, however his £500k investment in Dimi “one for the future” Papadopoulos has been a disaster, his current re-sale value being £0.00 and his value to the team a similar amount. With Blake, Stan has simply got the wrong man. To be fair, the Clarets did bid for Kuqi, especially after his domination of the Clarets’ back two in his appearance at Turf Moor for Stockport, and frankly Coxy and Arty haven’t looked the same players since the strongly built Finn took them apart. However, for some mystifying reason, he chose to go to Sheffield. Well, it's probably not so mystifying. Sheffield probably offered more dough and a guaranteed first team place whereas we probably offered less and the chance to fight to dislodge the ever popular crowd favourite Ian Moore or chief goal scorer Gareth Taylor.
In the interim, after his sparkling performance at Crystal Palace, Ian Moore has looked a very peripheral player and with a few more plates of pie & chips and a flagon or two of beer, the resemblance with Liam Robinson would be even stronger. Quite simply, Moore is never going to score a dozen league goals a season as, unlike Payton, he doesn’t know how to do it. Without wishing to single out anyone for too much criticism I have to say his performance at Cheltenham was absolute pants. Basically, the ref cottoned on to his pratfalls and waved play on so that was half of his game gone, the rest quickly followed. Basically, the better centre backs in the division have got him sorted, IMHO he is a spent force and we would do well to get shut, whilst he still retains some value.
By way of comparison I thought that Taylor had a decent game down there and at least let a couple of shots off and got one on target. As the “mindless”, “thick” and frankly disgraceful element have got stuck into Taylor as every game passes, the more he has diligently stuck to his thankless task of leading the Clarets' front line. Personally, I think Taylor is an admirable player and despite his lack of ability with his feet, week in week out he gets in where it hurts, always shows for the ball and even when he has missed a good chance, goes back and tries again. He is not chief penalty taker by accident: when Little missed at City, against Sheffield he was man enough to put his hand up. He has shown a bucketful of guts in the recent weeks and without his goals we would be mid-table now, yet his stock with the majority of the fans couldn’t be lower.
Of course, the major reason for our decline has been the absence both physically and mentally of our star performer Glen Little. I have a feeling that since the City game he has gone to bits. The penalty miss was a shocker and everyone acknowledges that it was the turning point of the game. Ideally a penalty taker should be a defender with a ramrod shot who never misses. If I remember rightly in the Golden Era it used to be Alex Elder. It's better if a defender takes them, as they can slink back to their position if they miss knowing that there is no expectation for them to score from open play.
However since then Glen hasn’t scored, except against Canvey Island, and missed an absolute sitter at Watford that would have had the Graham Branch / Gareth Taylor lynch mob sawing up the timber and plaiting the rope. However because it's Glen, it's OK. Nonetheless when he has played his contributions have been fitful and he has looked a pale shadow of the rampant figure that won countless matches earlier in the season including the last home victory against Stockport, although his fitness is in question.
Another factor has been the fall out between chief playmaker Paul Cook and Stan. Although there was a delay before they kicked in, plainly the effects are there to see. Stan has tried a bewildering number of midfield combinations subsequently and to my mind it's no coincidence that, in one of the few games we did win at Crewe, Paul played for ninety minutes. Cook gives that extra element of control to the midfield, although I acknowledge that he also is one of the chief offenders at falling back when we have a lead. However at least we have a lead to fall back on when he is in the side on most occasions. With Weller enigmatic, Ball a converted defender, and Grant finding out what it is like to play a full season of first class football, we have been stretched badly in this department and not enough ammunition has been provided for our one piece of artillery which appears to be functioning, Gareth’s golden nut.
Whilst it would be nice if we finished in the play-off zone and got a couple of extra games in, it would be a miracle if we got through to the Premiership as we have only beaten Hartlepool and Canvey Island in a knockout over the last two seasons, whilst succumbing to Cheltenham, Rushden, Scunthorpe and a mangy Crystal Palace side, so expectations of Premiership football are non-existent in our house. Stan hasn’t got a team up yet via the play-offs, so it’s unlikely he is going to start at this stage of his career.
However, it all comes back to the reptile’s comment that we have peaked and run out of steam. Frankly we were playing above ourselves earlier in the year and probably playing every game flat out. The better sides are able to go out against the Stockports of this world, go 2–0 up; and then go into cruise control, make a few substitutions and showboat for 45 minutes. The Clarets had to play 25 Cup Finals to get those fifty points, so when a few bits went wrong with the engine, Stan the mechanic either didn’t have the parts or put them in the wrong place and we just have not been able to get out of second or third gear back to the momentum we gained earlier. Just before the dip we won a very close game at Palace; it could have gone either way but through effort, grit and determination we hung on, snatched a couple of goals and bagged the points. Now it just isn’t happening - the momentum has gone and with it some of the confidence that comes from winning.
The other big factor is our utterly abysmal home form. The goals have dried up, the main reason being that nobody apart from Taylor can get a meaningful effort on target. We are the original one-club golfer, with our number one wood, Gareth’s magic bonce. Arthur is the only other player to have scored at Turf Moor since Ian Moore in mid-December.
Nonetheless Taylor is the butt of the fans' ire. A whole row of them behind me at Crewe were on his case through the game, so it's no wonder that recently in the emotional period after a game Stan let fly. Personally I can’t see any case for the Taylor persecution that has taken place, and Graham Branch before him. They are both decent players who make mistakes because they are big enough to want to get involved. Indeed, the Turf Moor crowd are very worrying: at the Stockport game one abiding memory is the whole of the Jimmy Mac stand out of their seats, gesticulating, shouting and swearing at Branch to get off. Stan is dead right on this one and whilst some supporters might like to take umbrage as they feel they are all tarred with the same brush, he has always qualified his remarks to point out that it is only a minority who are arseholes. However, regarding the long term future of the Club, who is going to sign for Burnley when they see the treatment dished out to players like Taylor, who is heading towards being our top scorer at this level since Frank Casper in 1972?
Although I am an infrequent visitor to Turf Moor, managing only three or four trips a season normally, every time I go I am struck by the way the place is now one giant Bob Lord Stand full of moaners, who don’t sing. With the old Longside you could stand with all the enthusiasts / singers and the moaners went and sat in the Bob Lord. Now we are all paying £18 it seems that the fun has gone out of watching football somewhat and it is some kind of financial investment on which we expect a minimum return. The time wasted watching football could have been spent on home improvements and added to the value of your property; ergo I have wasted time and money. The next step is to demand money back on the back of poor results.
However with the rise of punditry and their fantastic bursts of hindsight aided by 15 camera positions, the likes of Lawrenson, who is the epitome of failed management, can pontificate and analyse to their hearts' content whilst taking no responsibility, and the mindless naturally follow. The piss-taking has also increased. Unfortunately Burnley fans have chosen to foster and maintain a rivalry with a club we can never hope to catch up with in the next ten years at least. I still think that deep down we are smarting from those two bonings last season. When we scored at Crewe, the first coherent chant was “Stand up if you hate Bastards”. For the Bastard haters, 7–0 hurt a lot.
This leads on to another point. Unfortunately the culture at Burnley is now one of hate. We hate Blackburn: we sing more songs about Blackburn during a match than we do about Burnley. We hate the players who are perceived to be no good, and we hate our own fans who don’t hate our players. Sadly the haters are driving the mood of the crowd: “No one likes us” as "We are the bastards in claret & blue”. Take all those out and really there are no nice songs to sing about Burnley any more, which makes it a paradise for the haters. Taylor-hating is divisive, and usually the Taylor-haters love Ian Moore because he runs around a lot which Taylor doesn’t. Unfortunately Stan is more of a Taylor-lover than Ian Moore, as he likes forwards who score goals more than those who run around a lot, so they are giving Stan stick and so it goes on.
As supporters we need to get behind our team and our players; we also need to have a few more laughs at the games. Since we got into the top half of Division One it's got way too serious. We need to adjust to the fact that probably we are going to spend at least 10 years in this division, if we are lucky. To go up to the next level, and stay up, you need good management, good players, big crowds (and Burnley’s have decreased this season), and pots of money. City and Wolves have all four, and it's why they are top.
We are about half way there; the question is which way are we heading now? If it's down, hopefully the Taylor-haters will bugger off, which would be a small compensation, as they are spoiling some of the enjoyment of those of us who want to support the team.
UTC
