In a dire game at Oakwell, Burnley went down 1-0 to a less than impressive Barnsley team who now progress to the fourth round of the FA Cup. The Tykes might have found things more difficult had Burnley not been reduced to ten men following the sending-off of Brain Stock for a second yellow offence in the 36th minute and indeed the Clarets held on until the 85th minute before an error by Brian Jensen allowed substitute Barnsley youngster, Danny Rose to snatch the winner . This was certainly a game to forget, and despite being down to ten men better things would have been expected of the Clarets in a match which had very little action. The truth is Burnley had virtually no attempts on goal in a niggly match that did little to raise the spirits of Clarets fans. This was such a disappointing performance after the highs of Hillsborough on New Year`s Day and once again the result raised doubts regarding consistency and the ability to string two back-to-back wins together even against a side struggling at the foot of the Championship table. We can make excuses that through injury we missed a number of players such as Austin. Mee, Paterson and McCann but then the Tykes too put together a makeshift team having lost the on-loan services of Marcus Tudgay (also injured) and Jonathan Greening who have now both returned to their parent club, Nottingham Forest. Leading goal-scorer, Craig Davies too was also absent from the eighteen amidst rumours he is about to join Championship rivals, Bolton Wanderers. The only bright spot for the Clarets seemed to be the introduction of debutant Dane Richards from the bench in the 68th minute; for a time the Clarets looked a lot livelier but that soon evaporated. We simply have to quickly forget this game, take Stock (except we won`t have him for the next game) and move on, hoping we can get back to winning ways in the Championship when we face Crystal Palace in a tricky home game against the third-placed club next Saturday.
Team Sheet
It was obvious that we would be without Charlie Austin (gluteal/hamstring) and Ben Mee (medial knee ligament) for this clash and in the end Martin Paterson (thigh)and Chris McCann (hamstring) also remained sidelined following their injuries picked up in the previous game at Hillsborough. There was however better news for Dean Marney who returned to the starting eleven after missing out altogether against Sheffield Wednesday due to a thigh injury and Junior Stanislas also made a return after being named on the bench. He had missed the last three games due to a hamstring problem. Brian Jensen was also given out a run out in goal for the first time since the Carling Cup defeat away to Swindon last September. New winger, Dane Richards who only officially signed for the club on the 1st January and who had only just received international clearance was also drafted into the eighteen being one of the seven substitutes. In the end then we lined up 4-1-4-1 with Brian Stock in the holding role. Ings played on the right flank, Treacy out left with Wallace and Marney in the middle supporting Sam Vokes alone up front. The full line-up was as follows :
Jensen, Trippier, Duff, Shackell, Lafferty, Stock, Treacy, Wallace, Marney, Ings, Vokes
Subs: Grant, Edgar, O’Neill, Stanislas, Bartley, Fletcher, Richards
Full Match Report
It was perhaps surprisingly a warm, balmy day in Barnsley more reminiscent of spring than winter as Jason Shackell led his team onto the pitch in their blue away strip. The sun though would have little effect in raising the spirits of either team. Wigan referee, Paul Tierney got the game underway, the match soon deteriorating into a pretty scrappy affair with little action at either end. Even comeback kid, Keith Treacy, the hero at Hillsborough could do little to get the Clarets moving into fourth gear. The first 20 minutes passed with few attempts on goal at either end and a dire, stalemate looked to be on the cards for most of the first-half. The game deteriorated into a niggly game and was quickly becoming a massive yawn. Burnley had a chance in the eighth minute when Ings snook in from the right and charged down the middle through the heart of the Tykes defence before setting up Sam Vokes. Vokes though on the left side of the area got his angles all wrong and his shot curled past the keeper, Luke Steele only to fly just wide of the far post. A Wallace free kick from the left flank led to Duff heading over the bar before Wallace himself forced the Tykes keeper into saving his deflected cross underneath the crossbar. If Burnley were creating few chances, Barnsley were creating even fewer! Harewood had been quiet for most of the first-half but he was then involved in a controversial booking. The incident involved Brian Stock off-the-ball and both finished up with a yellow card. Both players appeared to fall out as the home side lined up a free-kick and in the end the referee decided to penalise both players even though Sean Dyche seemed pretty sure, Stock had been the innocent party. In isolation, it was just one of those bookings but for Stock the significance became clear when he picked up a second-yellow card for a blatant foul and was sent off with eight minutes to go after tugging O`Brien`s shirt just as he was about to line up a shot. With Burnley now down to ten men the home side sensed blood. David Perkins hit a shot from distance that curled just over the bar and then with seconds of the first-half remaining Scott Golbourne was ideally placed on the left side of the box but made a hash of his shot blazing it over the bar much to the relief of the Clarets!
Burnley now had to regroup and Dyche made the decision to replace Treacy with Edgar for the start of the second-half. The Clarets though continued to huff and puff without creating any chances and it was Barnsley who looked the most likely to score. Just 90 seconds from the restart, Stephen Dawson had a glorious opportunity to give the Tykes the lead. He picked up the ball on the edge of the box following a half-cleared corner but he miscued his effort and it bobbled away off-target. Dawson then had another chance which he fluffed 10 minutes later following some methodical Tykes build-up play down the left flank. Burnley attacks were few and far between with Sam Vokes now looking extremely isolated alone up front. On the hour mark though Vokes flicked on an Ings kick to find Wallace who cut the ball back to the Welshman. His shot though from just inside the area flew wide of target and the deadlock remained. It was now time for Dyche to introduce a fresh pair of legs so on came pacy winger, Dane Richards to make his debut with Wallace being the man replaced after 68 minutes. The Jamaican international was soon in the action too immediately winning a corner after sprinting down the right flank to liven up a Burnley contingent of over 1300 fans almost asleep with boredom! The winger was ready to impress again a few minutes later after this time charging through the middle before being tackled as he was about to line up a shot. It was the Oakwell curse that struck four minutes from time though just as it looked like a replay at Turf Moor might be on the cards. Brian Jensen was sadly to blame after misjudging a Scott Golbourne attempt that was more hopeful than accurate. The hapless keeper could only tip the ball onto the face of the crossbar before it fell nicely for substitute, Danny Rose to thump the ball into the roof of the net from six yards out to send the Clarets crashing out of the FA Cup at the third-round stage for the second season running. A game to quickly forget and one I already have! Let`s return to the more serious aim of trying to get promotion! Bring on the Palace at home next Saturday and consign this mess of a cup tie to the dustbin of history!
Match Stats
Barnsley: Steele, Dawson, Cranie, McNulty, Perkins, Golbourne, Kennedy (Cywka-67), O`Brien, Stones, Harewood (Noble-Lazarus-85), Dagnall (Rose-82)
Subs Not Used: Alnwick, Foster, Etuhu, Hassell
Goals: Rose 85
Booked: Yellow Cards for Harewood (24 mins) and McNulty (87 minutes)
Burnley: Jensen, Trippier, Duff (Bartley-83), Shackell, Lafferty, Stock, Treacy (Edgar-46), Wallace (Richards-68), Marney, Ings, Vokes
Subs Not Used: Grant, O’Neill, Stanislas, Fletcher
Booked: Yellow Card for Stock (24 mins) and then sent off for second yellow on 36 minutes. Yellow card for Marney (84 mins)
Possession: 49% Barnsley, 51% Burnley (Source: BBC Sport)
Ref: Paul Tierney (Wigan)
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Well put Couch, I agree with that summary. A couple of seasons ago I went to a cup game away at Hartlepool, Penny played in goal and it was a shocker that we eventually won, but I enjoyed it. I love watching football, I loved seeing Bartley play Centre Back when we went 3 3 3 after they scored and the fans did sing randomly from start to finish Ginger Mourinho. I learn a lot from every game I watch, Lafferty proved he has serious potential etc etc. Life for me isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass it’s about learning to dance in the rain………
I didn’t say nobody cared about the FA Cup! It is clear though even if you only take the Burnley figures only 300 more or so felt obliged to go to a cup game on a reasonably nice Saturday afternoon compared with those that went on a cold,dark miserable Tuesday night of which I was one! That was bad enough that night, this one sounded far worse! You can make excuses for Barnsley fans team being in a predicament but in the end their gate was shocking. It will be interesting to see if Tykes fans now find the FA Cup a hindrance and a distraction as they try to survive the drop [Edited by turfmanphil]
I suppose tmp could mount an argument that he should get off on the technicality of only arguing, as copied here, with reference, that he didn’t care about the Cup rather than anybody. “I won’t lose any sleep if we lose GC and I suspect we would be beter focussing on the Champonship without the distraction of the FA Cup. The financial rewards of promotion are far greater and you have more chance of falling on banana skins or going out to the likes of QPR in the FA Cup than getting to play the really big clubs.” Read more at: http://www.burnley.vitalfootball.co.uk/matchprere.asp?a=304443#ixzz2HJF0MHsV and in other places. But my decisions, like a ref’s are final. Guilty, guilty, guilty.
Oh, and in the words of the song, ‘you can appeal to FIFA if you wnat to’.
..and in contrast to VR in the last two seasons I have been to see Burnley scrape through some awful games in the Carling Cup. Burton, Barnet, MK Dons and this season, Plymouth! All of them dross in front of sub-5000 crowds ! Strangely enough I did not enjoy them one bit. I want to be entertained not pay good money to watch dire bollox like those games. Most of us wanted to go home and had to suffer extra time in a lot of those games. A masochist I am not but each to their own. [Edited by turfmanphil]
In fairness to TMP – I would not say I enjoyed watching the action on the pitch. As I have put above, it was not an exciting game and yes this does include the time we spent with 11 men. We were struggling to get going as an attacking force and I do not recall Luke Steele making a save all afternoon. However, being part of a football team ( as much as we would like it to be) is not just about playing exciting attacking football. Sometimes you have to grind out a result when you arent at your best. If with ten men we had tried to play expansive attacking football – this would have been ridiculous. The lads worked as a team and did more than just grind out a result. If it wasnt for the error from Jensen – we would have a replay and a decent chance of progressing. Saturday, although not exciting, showed me a bunch of lads working as a TEAM – something which is much improved since the arrival of Dyche.
I have to say Dale having re-read my article more than once, I don’t know what all the fuss is about! It seems to be a fair reflection of what I was told, what I read and what I heard on Clarets Player. I have already said I perhaps should have been fairer on the defence which seems to negate BC’s comment that quote, ‘Im not prepared to budge an inch ‘ but heh ho at the end of the day they are just opinions! It might help if those criticising my Match Reports when I’m not at the game offered to write their own for the site but that rarely happens if at all!
F A Cup draw.Darn it could of played Hull just across the river bridge. from us.
MK Dons was a bitterly cold day, Reading wasn’t much better late goal killed us if memory serves me right. Maybe the fuss as you call it was about a willingness to believe twitter CM and anything that proved a point when in truth Couch is right. I also think for what its worth we played better as a team this time than the previous game where we drew.
Oh for heavens sake,REAL folk post on ClaretsMad, REAL folk post on Twitterclarets and last time I looked Dave Thomas was a REAL person! Phil Bird was pretty REAL on Clarets Player too! This was a dire, dull game and a poor performance by the Clarets..and so say all of them! Those were the views I took on board to write the article before anyone came on here bleating how wonderful they were. What is the problem? [Edited by turfmanphil]
I would suggest that two things have caused the debate, tmp, and here I’m trying to be very calm and logical, rather than make a point. First the personal vews expressed about the pointlessness or some such of the FA Cup in the pre-match article. Some probably agree with this, but others quite strongly don’t, and feel that – after a bit of a slump for a few years in the Cup’s fortunes – it’s become almost an article of faith in the game to get back behind it. Even the big teams are playing strong line-ups again, and while some games were dross, as is the case in the league, week in, week out, others were fantastic and special enterainment. Second, the headline. I’d guess that some people looked at the headline, scanned the story and read the debate, while others read the headline and it subconsciously coloured what they read in the story to match the headline, regardless of what the story actually said. Read Kahnemann’s Thinking, Fast and Slow which explains that this is how everyone’s brain is prone to work at least as often as not, especially at a time of stress, such as a gut-wrenching loss following a blunder by a hero leting down a team backs to the wall effort. Anyway, here’s the good news! My oldish wifi hub lives. My home Vitalcursor, just like my work one, is back in realtime. So, if my complaint to VitalFA has had some impact on that very significant and welcome improvement in performace, thank you.
I am firmly convinced my anti-FA Cup stance is the ONLY reason I am getting this stick and why folk are trying to defend their love of it by dissing my report and trying to pretend this was a far better performance than it was even to the extent of saying they enjoyed it! In relation to the headline whilst agreeing it is equivocal the main point is the fact that we very rarely get anything at Oakwell and that’s why its rubbish. ‘Rubbish’ or similar I have to confess also being a word used by many Clarets at this game to describe the performance and result except the handful on here it would seem with an hidden agenda. Again I fail to see, having also slighly amended the Star Player section to be a little fairer, what the problem with content actually is. There is nothing in the report that differs really from what others said about the game at the time I was writing the article. If folk want to continue dissing it then they have to state which particular bits they disagree with so I can more specifically defend the words
I am also not sure CP whether there is anything too critical in the article about the FA Cup and I suspect most of the dissing is based on my earlier comments. The only reference I can see to the FA Cup in the article is where I state that the Championship and promotion is a more serious aim which is just an opinion but surely one that most would accept. The financial rewards for getting promotion far outweigh what might be achieved by a good Cup run unless we somehow won the FA Cup and qualified for Europe which is highly unlikely. Even then I would prefer to be in the top fight than winning the Cup and stay in the Championship.
They are all at it! Luton Town’s chief executive has said promotion to League Two is so important he would have swapped their FA Cup win over Wolves for three points at Woking. The Hatters upset the Championship side to earn a fourth-round tie at Norwich City, but lost 3-1 to Woking last week.
“The league is by far the most important thing for us to focus on this season,” Gary Sweet told BBC Look East
You know what they say about hatters. In this case, though, I suspect the CEO is being smart and making sure that the thrill and financial gain of the Cup is put aside for now so that his employees’ minds are back to earth and focussed, one day at a time, on the next match. Where can we find his full quote? And if he ever writes an autobiography I’ll bet he says that the win over Wolves was one of the greatest days of his life.
No I suspect he means ‘”The league is by far the most important thing for us to focus on this season” So it should be considering that will bring in the greater financial reward if they achieve it. Having said that he does seem to be edging his bets if you read the full article which is on BBC Luton Town page.
tmp-we have not been “dissing” your article and we appreciate your efforts. I dont have the time to write articles myself though I’m afraid (although I’m sure you dont either!). My only point is you say we played badly whereas I thought we played better than average (and indeed allowing for 10 men I would go as far as to say very well and we were unlucky). My reaction was not based on anything to do with FA Cup popularity or otherwise. Rather I agree with CP regarding the headine setting the tone. I expected a headline about valiant defensive effort and being unlucky but instead saw the word rubbish which gobsmacked me. Then in the first paragraph words like “dire,less than impressive, such a disappointing performance, the only high spot” further set the tone. I just wasnt expecting that from a better than average performance. (I acknowledge the word dire was probably in respect of entertainment value rather than performance but it still creates an impression of overall rubbishness)
Everybody of course is entitled to their opinion, it just seems there has been some over-reaction to this article in particular. I don’t think it’s too far removed to be honest from the official report by the club. The writer calls the match “A dour tie” and goes on to say “Despite the sterling efforts of lone frontman Sam Vokes, the only other positive to take from a below-par display was the introduction of Jamaican winger Dane Richards’ They say below par which doesn’t sound like better than average? I have to say on Clarets Player, stronger words to describe this performance were used some of which I repeated in my article
Is it safe to play out yet? I’ve enjoyed watching this debate which, of course, just goes to show that we all see football differently. Even when all we do is hear it, or hear about it. Or for those of an older vintage watch it on Teletext or see the result in the Pink on a Saturday night. For what it’s worth there are a couple of people on VB who often share similar views to me on the way a game has gone and, if I am not there to see it myself, they will be the ones whose views I look for first. That doesn’t mean other opinions aren’t valid, but I’m guessing we all prefer those who look at things in a similar fashion. I wasn’t at the game on Saturday so can’t really say what happened but, after watching football for over forty years, I can say without question that a team reduced to ten men for much of the game will have to dig out a performance to win it. It might not be entertaining but since when has football been 5-5 every week? That we only lost 1-0 suggests that it was a gritty enough effort but sadly it seems like we threw a goal in at the death and came away empty-handed. Such is life. No fan likes it when we lose – or at least they shouldn’t do – but the beauty of football is that there is usually another game in a few days. Mind you, I won’t be listening to the Palace fixture or any other game on Clarets Player as I find their coverage a little bit one-sided. Sorry to be controversial….but it’s all about opinions.
I’m worn out!! lol