Burnley 1-1 Gillingham

Igor's comments on the draw against the Gills.

By: Igor Wowk

On to the Gillingham game. The first half could only be exceeded in dullness and tedium by watching televised angling live from an upstream section of the Irwell. Gillingham hit the post. Apart from that nothing happened, the defence played well and Cox marked Asaba completely out of the game and got him booked as well. The game looked like a contest between two teams both playing away for a draw.

I should mention that Stan, in his wisdom, omitted Payton, IMHO a crass error. Equally he persisted in playing Little on the left. Plainly Stan shortly lost patience with the eleven on the pitch and lined up all three subs. only five minutes after the re-start. Barring the back three and Crichton, anyone could have been dragged off. In the event the fall guys were the same as Saturday, Gray, Cooke and Weller. The three brought on were the same and immediately normality was restored and BFC looked like a home team. Straight away Payton set up Little (n.b. GDK) for a golden opportunity but a last ditch tackle and Glen's lack of pace resulted in a corner. Mullin was running at them and I thought Branchy (one of my favourite players these days) looked in good touch. His pace, mobility and strength causing the Gills back four problems. He just failed to touch in a Payton shot, which flashed across the face of the goal, and set up openings as well. Little appeared more animated and it looked just a matter of time before the Clarets would score.

However from an excellent throw out by Bartram, the Gills built up a counter attack on the break down the Clarets left thrusting into the box. This appeared to have broke down when Cox intercepted and appeared to be able to clear the danger, however somehow he contrived to set up Asaba about five yards out from goal left with only Crichton to beat. Strangely the Gills forward miss hit his shot, it went between Crichton's legs and trickled in. Personally I don't blame Crichton as clearly he wasn't expecting his own centre half to set up the opposition, and no doubt he was anticipating a full blooded shot. However the Crichton persecution mob will no doubt be sawing up the wood for the cross.

Burnley hit back when Little turned the defence and got to the bye line forcing Ashby to nudge over the line, but another forward would have knocked it in, and the game wended its way to a draw.

So another bad result and frankly the Clarets are going to struggle if they cannot knock over teams like Gillingham.

On the plus side the defence looks very good, with last season's back three the bedrock. The formation looks very fluid with Little playing in a free ranging role with Thomas at time playing full back and Weller in midfield if Glen is on the left and Briscoe thrusting forward more if Glen moves across to the right. However there is no doubt that Ball plays almost as an extra defender, which means that its hard to counter attack swiftly and with pace when you have Cook in there as well. The midfield doesn't look right to me and now Stan has given Payton his annual reminder that he is in charge, and no one individual is bigger than the team, perhaps he will now relent and put the club's best player back in the side, especially as Cooke and Gray have that month of Sundays look about them

I have rambled on long enough as usual, however I realise that many of you can't get to the games and like a summary of what actually went on.

I'd be interested to hear people's opinions about the new signings, the folly of holding Payton back and Stan's usual early season tentative approach.

Forget the early results, its going to be a battle for survival.

UTC

Igor

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