More About Burnley
Bradford City 1 Burnley 2 Preseason game 2008/2009
Owen Coyle and Stuart McCall paths crossed as players during their days North of the border but the Irish player born in Scotland and the Scot born in Yorkshire never ended up on the same side and so as they faced each other as managers it is no surprise that one ended up happier than the other.
However - considering the result - one would be very surprised if it was Coyle who was more pleased as McCall watched his Bradford City team that is surely too good for League Two more than match a Championship side who have spent big in the Summer.
Spent big on Martin Patterson - £1.3m from Scunthorpe - who along with Robbie Blake were head and shoulders the best thing about the Burnley side which struggled to keep up with City in the opening exchanges.
The Bantams were approaching race trim. Rhys Evans is still a question mark in goal - his ability with crosses is the question and both visitor goals on the hour and in the last minute came when crosses got into the box and were not cut out - but the back four of Paul Arnison, an outstanding Graeme Lee, Matthew Clarke and Paul Heckingbottom coped well with the troublesome two up front for the men from over the hills. Willy Topp - playing a full ninety minutes - and Omar Daley troubled the full backs and the middle pairing of Paul McLaren and young Luke Sharry - not looking out of place - started brightly.
However - and shamefully - rather than competing with City in the spirit of warming up for league games - Burnley resorted to physical play with Remco van der Schaaf putting in the type of tackles that would get cards in games and resulted in him being compulsorily substituted after thirty-five minutes.
Referees are told to take pre-season games as if they were full matches so where Mr G. Laws got this rule from is anyone’s guess but the validity of the game from that point on was highly dubious. In a league game Burnley would not have been able to use soft reffing to stop City’s playmaker with fouls and one doubts anyone can be proud of the Clarets for that sort of play or for the persistent handballs in the second half that killed off chances which would have gone punished in the season proper.
So City scored before half time through Barry Conlon after he coolly chipped in when capitalising on a mistake and did enough to suggest that we were far closer to the Championship level than we last season - or that Burnley are closer to League Two - and the result mattered even less than usual with the favours that were given to the team from the league higher.
McCall has Chris Brandon, Lee Bullock, Joe Colbeck and Michael Boulding to come back into this side and in McLaren he has a player so good that he has literally put his shirt on him. Ten days until the start of the season for both these clubs and McCall will be happier of the two managers.
Burnley might have had the win thanks to the favours but they were matched by the Bantams and if it turns out that both sides are League One quality then 2009/2010 could very well see this fixture played in that division.
City’s 4-0 defeat to Motherwell brought us all down to Earth. The signings and a win over Bradford Park Avenue seemed to have got City fans thinking that League Two was in the bag. A trip to a UEFA cup team saw to that and over the weekend Shrewsbury over took us at the favourites to win the league.
I liked that rush when Michael Boulding signed and I still feel it now. I’ve looked at the eleven and the sixteen that City can put out next season and the bumps of ability around the squad are impressive.
Take the midfield situation and the players like McLaren and Brandon are in and the likes of Phelan and Eddie Johnson making do are out. Tom Penford was snapped up by non-league clubs wanting to punch above their weight when he left us but we have snapped up players for League Two clubs looking to punch above.
Players like Graeme Lee who would be the most impressive name on someone else’s team are now in our team and we have a collection of these guys. You would have looked and worried cause some visitor had former Premiership players like Boulding or multi-million guys like Peter Thorne. We have a fist full of these guys. We have the best team in League Two next season.
But having the best team and playing the best football are two different things and on Wednesday night we get to see how these Bantams play against Burnley.
Rhys Evans seems to be Stuart’s first call as keeper but I’m not convinced. This is the weakness in the side as every other position fills up.
Paul Arnison at right back with Milton Turner as back up if the Guisley man can be signed. Paul Heckingbottom at left back. Graeme Lee and Matthew Clarke in the middle which is strange cause I would never have thought Mark Bower should be dropped. Clarke is just too impressive and the sort of big man we need.
Joe Colbeck is sitting out the first two games but Omar Daley can and will fill in. Paul McLaren seems a shoe-in for the starting line up with Lee Bullock or Kyle Nix alongside him. I’ve not been impressed with Bullock much but McCall is and those two could be his starting midfield. Nix might be needed on the left with Chris Brandon injured.
Michael Boulding is injured too but Peter Thorne and Willy Topp will be up top on day one and if not then Barry Conlon is scoring freely in pre-season.
The way the names trip off the tongue. The way they fill the starting eleven with quality like Bower, Nix or Topp to spare. That is the indication of the quality Stuart has.
Someone once told me (It was me - Ed.) that to get promoted you get a bunch of players together who are too good for the league you are in and let gravity take you up. Gravity bounced City off the floor of football. Time for the bump back to begin.
Bradford City 1 Burnley 1 - Friendly Game 2007/2008
First things first. Bradford City took honours against Burnley in the one all draw at Valley Parade against a strong Burnley side in what was the best pre-season test at Valley Parade since Sam Allardyce stormed out of VP following Wayne Jacobs testimonial with a face on him that said “That mattered”.
Tonight Burnley tried, City tried and City edged it.
Burnley, however, had more class. The gap between the two divisions was there for all to see as Burnley pushed the ball around and controlled it with the kind of ease that City once did but what the Bantams lacked in class they made up in the kind of passionate play that manager Stuart McCall - in charge of his first City game at Valley Parade for seven and a half years - typified.
If not first to the ball then City snapped around the feet McCall is building a team in his own image and at the hub of that McCall seems to have found his number four in the shape of tank like midfielder Paul Evans.
At times Evans is McCall’s McCall to a tee. He harries at everything then tackles hard but fair - most of the time - and like McCall he can move the ball. More short ten yarders in future maybe but with City playing a 433 with Omar Daley and Joe Colbeck on a remit to get down the channels beyond the increasingly impressive Barry Conlon Evans played quarterback hitting balls that will rip apart League Two defences. Evans is not essential for City or for McCall - Craig Bentham can do his job - but with the Welshman having other offers but preferring City one gets the feeling that he could make much more of an impact on results in his second coming than he did in his first.
One hopes McCall gets his man.
Also worth getting would seem to be Australian born midfielder Kyle Nix who buzzed around the midfield of the field next to Evans and Eddie Johnson with a classy touch and an eagerness to impress his former Sheffield United reserve manager McCall. Nix almost won the game for City with a free kick late on that pyjamaed goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly saved impressively in an impressive midfield three which saw Eddie Johnson continue his transformation to a man of the middle with a long channel ball to Joe Colbeck which the winger took in stride and pulled back for Evans to slam in from the right hand side of the box. Two passes over sixty yards and more impressive play from Colbeck that will no doubt be ignored by his detractors.
Not to be ignored was the train sized gap which saw Burnley’s Michael Duff thread a ball behind Mark Bower and in front of Donovan Ricketts for Ade Akinbiyi to turn in for the opener. Defensive communication is the heart of all winning teams and should McCall’s men be celebrating on May this will have been either sorted out on the training ground or no one in League Two will be capable of playing that sort of pass.
The back two of David Wetherall and Mark Bower seemed at home with Paul Heckingbottom’s gradual return at left back and new signing Darren Williams slotting in to the right back role and showing ability to support the forward play coupled with strength at the back and seeming to be a very useful player.
From the bench Tom Harban impressed at right back and striker Luke Medley looked huge but lacked the experience to fill Conlon’s vital role in the set-up McCall is building but most vital in that seems to be a McCall of a player to fill the manager’s shoes. Contract for Paul Evans? Very much so.