Match Details

Ball

Reports

This was a strong all-round performance and quite unexpected. Although we are still very light up front, the tightness at the back meant we were always in it. And in addition, they played like their contract negotiations depended on it...

Line up (in the first half)

Niko

Thomas Davis Cox Briscoe

Weller Ball Cook Mullin

Moore Taylor

in the second Mullin was given a much freer role before being taken off. Note no Branch!

Subs Payton Maylett Armstrong yadda yadda yadda

Now that I come to sit down and think about it, I can't remember much about the game.

Burnley started brightly and continued in the same vein for much of the first half. With Watford largely playing a 4-4-2 as well the game was well balanced, with both teams having good passages of play but failing to create any clear-cut opportunities.

Burnley's best chances came with runs down both flanks and low crosses which narrowly failed to find onrushing attackers. However, we were getting in behind the Hornets' back four and their somewhat chunky keeper Baardsen didn't really know what to do with balls across the face of the goal, and it has to be said the balls across were of a generally better quality than when Little puts them over. It has to be said though, that we failed to create a clear scoring opportunity in the first half, and any balls went went directly up to the front two immediately came straight back.

The Clarets back four looked very good, with our only weaknesses (a) the occasional inability to clear the ball from corners decisively, Cox on one occasion having to put the ball out for a corner after seemingly taking an age and (b) repeated confusion as to whether NTG was calling for balls that really should have been his. I know I was gilding the lily slightly when I named Lee Briscoe as player of the season, but the difference in defensive balance it makes when he plays is enormous. Future England prospect Tommy Smith made him look slow once early on but apart from that I can't recall the Watford attack really getting behind the back four all evening, being reduced to a sporadic stream of long-range efforts.

So a quiet but strong first half, only enlivened by the ever-unreliable G. Laws as referee. You certainly can't accuse him of bias though - he was equally unfair on both teams, with some truly desperate decisions, helped out by two equally poor linesmen. At least he only booked one player (Ball, for a very poor challenge after letting a man through)

The game in the second half was much more open as Mullin was given a more advanced roving role and the remaining midfielders operating a more central three. We then looked better going forward in patches but Graham Taylor is no mug and took advantage of the extra man in midfield to push the ball out to his wingers who, as seems to be the general case in this division, rarely got to the byline or were poor in their delivery, gifting balls for the likes of Cox and Davis to clear.

It was all getting a bit shambolic by the 73rd minute. We were still playing the ball around well, but our only real chance had been a sharp long-range half-volley on the turn from Moore when Weller produced a piece of magic on the edge of the penalty area of the right wing, flicked the ball up at Moore well outside the near post. Moore made glancing contact with his head, and the ball wrong-footed Baardsen, skipped across the goalmouth and was being shepherded past the far post by two strapping Watford defenders when TAYLOR, simultaneously sprinting and inching towards the danger area, somehow launched his leg between the two player and poked the ball into the back of the net.

This was fairly unexpected and the resultant joy on the terraces was complemented by an equal level of surprise because 0-0 was the best most of us seemed to be looking for. This appeared to be the concensus on the Burnley bench too because, after that it was all hands to the pumps as Cook was withdrawn for Armstrong and we sat tight. Even then there wasn't too much to fret over. Commitment levels looked up 100% compared to the Portsmouth match and you would have thought that Burnley were the team going for promotion.

Just one thing - I'm still worried by Ian Moore. He looks very talented, but seems to lack any physical presence in or around the box, a bit like a youth team player. Are we feeding him enough pies?

Steve

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