Goals galore for goatless City

Well, where do you start? Burnley received a total thrashing by City at the weekend and for the first time in recent memory Shaun Goater was nowhere to be seen. The free scoring “Goat” once banged in back to back hat tricks at Turf Moor and often cited it as his favourite ground during interviews. I think after Saturday the likes of Adam Johnson, Emmanuel Abebayor and Carlos Tezev may be redrawing their lists of their most successful stomping grounds.

Six one at the final whistle tells one hell of a story, but the fact it was three nil in less than seven first half minutes gives you all you need to know. It’s disheartening enough when your team concedes one early goal but when three go in all you can do is choose whether to laugh or cry.

During the rest of the eighty three minutes where three more goals went in, I like those who chose to stay had to let my anger subside and enjoy one of those rare “we’re bad but we know it” atmospheres. The fans stayed in good voice and got behind the team and at times made fun of our plight. There was however a chorus of boos which rang out particularly at half time where the fans voiced their dissatisfaction.

I’m trying to remain philosophical about our season as the Premier League was always going to be tough for a club the size of ours. Of course like many, my expectations rose slightly with our early season home form and those victories over Manchester United and Everton. However I always knew our form would stumble and the season would get invariably harder.

It has for a long time now been a struggle which was made much worse by the departure of Owen Coyle. Whether Brian Laws will ever prove himself to be the right man to take Burnley forward remains to be seen but at the moment things are not working out for him.

The team’s regular lacklustre starts to games are adding to his detractors claims that he cannot motivate the players who many believe don’t want to play for him. While stories true or not supposedly coming out of the dress room don’t fill people with confidence either. Away from the confines of the dressing room Laws also receives criticism about his body language. At times he looks and speaks like he is already consigned to the fact we will be back in the Championship next season. That frustrates fans who look at the table and see us not getting vital points when West Ham and Hull continue to falter.

While I don’t agree with all of this anti Laws stuff, I do share some fears. My worry is that we have moved straight from an arm over the shoulder manager in what as a “successful” side to a polar opposite who is more likely to get his point across by throwing tea cups or in his case chicken wings. This in theory should not be a problem but it could be if the players don’t think the manager has a worthy track record to back up his voice.

I was also utterly bemused to hear Laws tell a reporter after the game that he learnt against City that we can’t play just two central midfielders against anyone in the Premier League. This was blatantly obvious games ago and something I wrote on here at the time. Had it not been for losing the midfield battle in our home defeats to Pompey and Wolves as well as our draw with Stoke we may now be sitting level if not above our relegation rivals.

Restoring both Blake and Eagles into the line-up was a very brave attacking move in a 442 formation and unfortunately it backfired massively for him. I still believe one if not both of these two hold the key for us getting a positive result or two before the end of the season. They just need to be played in the right system.

At five nil at half time things couldn’t get much worse. In the days of my undistinguished football career when we were on the end of an irretrievable first half spanking we were always taught to try and redeem some pride by going out and winning the second half. Burnley fought out a one all draw but did show much more of a fighting spirit.

The second half performance was a small positive though, it showed that one or two of our players do still have a bit of fire in their bellies as Nugent in particular tried to take the fight to City. Sub Jack Cork showed glimpses of the performance he put in away at Villa while Wade Elliot also looked better than in recent weeks.

As the rain poured and the crowd chanted for a hopeful postponement the game descended into chaos at times as the ball struggled to run freely. To call the game off at five nil would’ve been as harsh on City as it would’ve been embarrassing for us to have a result that never was hanging over our heads. Things got so bad out there that I thought Laws’ third substitution was going to see Rebecca Adlington enter the fray.

As the message boards descend into meltdown, a chorus of dissatisfaction about our current plight rings loud and clear. Some are calling for Laws to resign or be sacked but it is almost a certainty that he isn’t going anywhere. A win at away Hull at the weekend would give him a massive boost in what is going to be a season defining game at the KC.

Three points away from home in the Premier League would give the manager a platform to build on in his quest for acceptance in doing something that Coyle never did. Whether we now stay up or go down we need to get back to 4-5-1, get the balance of the team right and give it a good go.

Mistakes have most definitely been made along the way and whether Brain Laws is the right man for the job or not getting our arbitrary hammering from City at the Turf is much better happening in the Premier League than it was in the dark days of Division Two.