SOBS V CLARETS

With the euphoria of last Saturday having barely died down, the Lads went to Turf Moor and got a right boot up the backside from, a bit worryingly, one of the two teams we know most about. We edged the first half, with impressive ball retention and resilient defending, but didn't force mag reject Dubravka to do much. The home side upped their game after the break, defended well in two banks of four, and made the most of the two chances they got. Boo.

Having negotiated the various diversions in the Harrogate area, and thus enjoyed the rural delights of our most scenic awayday we popped into our usual spot - Colne - for cocktails and the R&B festival. We discussed the bonus of having Mexico on our side this season, thanks to a Twitter/X campaign over there to back a random Premier League team - Vamos, muchachos!

Traffic issues meant an early departure (R&B festival and shows and that) as the team news came in, with no surprises..

Roefs

Hume Ballard Alderete Mandava

Xhaka (c) Sidiki Diarra 

Talbi Mayenda Adringa

... and a bench of: Patterson, Seelt, Masuaku, Neil, Le Fee, Rigg, Isidor, Guiu, and Roberts. Canny.

We somehow managed the chaos that passes for Burnley's new turnstiles and were into our shiny new safe sitting/standing seats/bits of concrete, in the other side of the end (keep up at the back)to our usual one by half two. Note to Burnley... not everyone likes fruity cider or pretendy Italian lager. Where's yer Benedictine?

In our totally unnecessary and too much like Burnley's dark kit - stripes, man!- we defended the end in front of our fans and, with an effing great pillar in front of me, and after a period of applause in memory of Burnley's Willie Irvine, let them kick off.

I think one of the few things the ref got right in the first half was the kick-off, as he allowed stuff that would have started a fight on Spennymoor Daisy Fields on a Sunday morning to go unpunished, but our retention of the ball was impressive throughout the opening 45. Adingra was caught offside early on, then fouled off the ball by their scruffy 28 (Hannibal, apparently, the sort of player who'd get booted into space from the Daisy Fields within ten minutes), with the free being headed down by Big Dan and Mayenda's poked effort causing their keeper problems. Unfortunately, somebody caught Dan and he was down - as was Talbi. After keeping them both off the pitch for an inordinate length of time, the ref let one back, but not Dan. When he did get back on he sat straight down and was eventually replaced by Seelt - our third consecutive forced replacement of a central defender. Only eight minutes gone this time.

A great challenge by Reinildo near halfway was called a foul on 12, and eventually went for a Burnley corner on our left. Roefs caught that calmly, and set us away with the eventual shot from the left scudding across the home goal and wide. A Burnley "goal" was chalked off for the most obvious of fouls on Seelt in our box, but not until they'd played the music and set the screens away. Hahaha! (Don't laugh too soon)

The ref insisted on tapping his watch every time we had a dead ball, as if we were even taking any time over them. We were playing very wide and thus stretching their midfield, and Talbi kept cutting inside to support Mayenda - which baffled the home side a bit, but not enough to allow us a shot on goal. Which was a bit frustrating, but it got us to the break, after four added minutes, looking slightly the better side. Mind, the ref was the polar opposite of last week's man in the middle, with too many weak bits of officiating.

Ross Wallace, one of Keano's boys at SAFC and a bit of a hero at Turf Moor was the halftime interview and got a decent welcome from our lot, then we were off again, with no changes. Burnley, however, changed their tempo and were much quicker getting forward. It only took them two minutes to fashion a break and Cullen stepped inside from the left to fire in off the foot of the far post. Bugger, although they did run a VAR check for possible offside (eh?) before restarting.

A couple of minutes later Hume whacked in a shot that was deflected for a corner on our right, but nobody was at the back post to meet Xhaka's cross. At this point the floodlights came on, went back off, and the fancy electronic adverts went barmy, resulting in several minutes of stoppage. When we did get away, we conceded a couple of corners, then made the changes, with Isidor, Le Fee, and Roberts replacing Mayenda, Adringa, and Talbi. 

Enzo went left, Paddy went right to link with Trai, while Issy was a straight swap up top. Le Fee's low ball into the box looked dangerous but was put behind by the centre half, who twanged something in the process and had to go off after a lengthy lie down. We had plenty of the ball, but ran into a well organised home defence every time we got near the box, although a penk from distance might have been worthwhile - as we advised the players when they lined up yet another cleverish ball in. With ten to go we went for broke, replacing Diarra with Guiu, and the young'un basically chased everything and everyone, while doing his best to wind up their defenders.

With a couple of minutes left, we got caught upfield and they broke down their left to whack it high into the net. Game over, really. 

An added ten minutes were announced (thank the lord for dodgy electrics) and we roared the Lads to do something - but three minutes in it should really have been three when they curled one wide of Roef's right hand post.

We tried, but ran into brick walls and our patient buildup was little use at that stage, and the home side deservedly took the points. Basically, it boiled down to three shots on target in 104 minutes, two of which went in and the third of which was saved by Dubravka. If you don't shoot, you don't score.

Man of the Match? I did consider Hume, but their goals both came down his side, sort of. Therefore I'll give it to Alderete, who looked composed and tried to set things away.