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brazil1982 added 17:56 - Jan 2
Well earned point, could have nicked it. Not overly impressed with Burnley. Smith & Berra excellent.
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chorltonskylineblue added 18:52 - Jan 2
Smith & Berra were two rocks at the heart of the defence. Fraser and Sears were tricksy and Skuse had a good one, but it was a game of few chances. Both teams looked knackered especially around the 70 minute mark. A familiar story today after a busy festive schedule. Draw was a fair result. Mick needs to give a few of them a rest good for the cup game.
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Mullet added 19:52 - Jan 2
Town travelled to Lancashire looking for a sixth win on the spin away from home. A record to break and a run of form that had seen 6th place our regular spot as 2015 gave way to 2016. One change in the first team as Hyam replaced the injured Douglas – the homegrown midfielder sat next to Skuse as Mick put out a precise 4-2-3-1 formation. Sears started on the right, Fraser the left and Bru the eye-catching man in the hole behind Murphy.

Before the game a large rippling mass of blue akin to Daryl murphy’s torso swelled behind the goal, by kick off silence hung in air, the anticipation perhaps constrictive. A tense and frantic start saw Town match the hosts 4-4-2 which broke into a 4-4-1-1 when the lumpen Vokes let Gray run off his shoulder and the through the middle.

Town had the best of the early exchanges despite Berra’s recent duopoly of both CB and stunt man. The bandaged head again lay stricken early doors as he landed awkwardly from a collision with Vokes. Once injury time was passed, the game rippled and ran from end to end.

Lots of head tennis saw Town trying to spread their threat across the final third in contrast to the home side’s Napoleonic preference to punch a hole through the middle via the head of Vokes and feet of Gray. Suffice to say it was Town who had more territory and more chances in the opening half.

Bru won a corner with a shot put wide, but failed to beat the first man with first of many corners. It would take another stopstart spell before Town really found their mark. A redirected effort was ricocheted into a grateful Heaton’s arms which he clearly knew little about. Fraser was then found for the first time space and bent a whipped shot just past the post with the keeper equally clueless about its trajectory.

At the back Town were sweeping away anything 20 yards from goal. While Burnley weren’t a dirty team there were 5 or 6 times limbs were left in and the game stopped without a card forthcoming. When Gray fouled Tommy Smith and then tumbled realising he wasn’t getting clear the home fans sizzled incensed at the whilstleblower’s lack of peapushing.

After about 20 mins the best chance of the game fell to the side who had had far less of them. Until a ball snuck through to an unmarked Gray on the penalty spot, Burnley had seen any shot way off target. Our tight back five had shown them little but blind alleys in which to fire from. In this instance the diminutive front man opened his sidefoot far too far, sending the ball skittling wide when an opening looked certain. Cruel luck? A goal certainly would’ve been.

Within five minutes the game swung like a pendulum back to a mechanical Town as Sears who had often struggled to find his man switch with Fraser. The attacking bite of Murphy drew little blood from two hulking CB’s who won plenty in the air and made the second ball difficult, the widemen now incisors cutting in from the chalky dust of the byline.

Chambers would be the wrong man in the right place to find himself with the ball at the back post and time and space to get a shot off. He opted to pass instead but his dinked cross found only opposition. The next incursion from the inside arc of Sears saw the livewire Town man fire a vicious shot off the chest of Heaton. Again the keeper did little to dispel suspicions he knew entirely where he and the ball was.

Burnley would push and pull and a second Andre Gray dive would go not just in clumsy stages, but unchecked and unrewarded. The home side were spitting pastry by now, ready to blow their lids at every decision not given their way. When they won a corner and crashed the ball home from it the fouls on ¾ of our defence and Gerken more obviously in doing so; seemed not be counted by the hosts, wrapped up in their hotheaded protests.

Town meanwhile had ground out better territory and more chances but little to show for it. On a slippy pitch where Knudsen, Berra and Bru all lost their footing at unfortunate times, the defenders both forced to concede throw-ins having received the ball under pressure it felt as half time that the game was balanced razor-thin. A lead for either side may well have been unjust for the other.

It was pleasing to see the Dane hit more impressive than infuriating passes and throws today, but both still featured. One bent down the line for Murphy to flick over his head impressively and allow Sears to go once more and find Heaton’s chest – he swapped back with Fraser to see the half out as Town rotating wingers seemingly at designated intervals. Likewise when Skuse and Bru got a foot on the ball there were neat moves of triangular and geometrically neat passes that drew fouls and markers apiece.

The second half started in less pleasing fashion. Burnley came at us like the clap running and burning towards our box. In a flimsy five minutes our Captain rushed at the ball and missed it. Luckily it found Berra and he used Knudsen as the outlet to see the danger away. When the clarets came again Chambo seemed to panic on the ball before finding his head.

Town’s first chance of the second half again fell to the wrong man, in the right place at the back post. Hyam met Bru’s lofted free kick after Fraser had been sent flying on the outer edges of the box. This time on the outer edges of the six yard box it was Claret cloth spilling across the turf to get a body on the line and the ball nowhere near it.

The little Scot took not one but two high boots from Lowton before the ex-Blunt had his name taken. With little change out on the left and plenty time Mick dropped Oar into mix and withdrew the loanee. Town now matched the hosts with Murphy a lone striker and banks of four the sturdy foundation behind he and Bru.

This lasted all of five minutes before the Mauritian was withdrawn for Pitman. This provoked a scare for Town as Burnley lumped clear. Gerks came to intercept the run of Gray and handled the ball, before hot potatoing it into row Z (well maybe J, it was away quickly put it that way). Red card cried the home fans. Not a chance.

With a Kiwi at the back dominating the home side’s attack and stealing the plaudits, it was the recently introduced Australian that caught the eye. A little blue pill to ease Town’s jitters, each of his sexy touches aroused something inside the blue end. Hope, belief, admiration, all in the arc of those little legs as Tommy whipped a selection of delicious passes with long and short balls teasing the defenders.

For all the matching Mick had done tactically with his formation changes, Town opted to ape their opponents’ style too. Murphy finding Sears with a lovely nod to set the little man through. He really should have passed to Pitman joining the party at the back post but he drilled it low – the whites of the posts clearly too inviting.

Mick soon made his last and most surprising sub. Having already withdrawn two of the better but clearly not fully fit attacking outlets, the battered and buffered Murphy made way for Varney. Aerial bombardment had been swiftly repelled by two decent defenders. It seemed the nuisance and noise of Varney was preferred. Nothing could more apposite than the excellently disco-tinged tune that bore his name in the back of the Fishwick stand. Industrious and grinding was his cameo.

Again the half had seen much in the way of headers exchanged, heated words traded and real graft from two almost mirror images of top Championship sides. No one epitomised that more than the returnee Hyam. On another day such hard-work and effort to win everything would be better rewarded. His range of passing not always finding his man from the two yard torpedo he sent skidding off the turf to the failed Koeman impression in the first half. It was good from the midfielder, but not always right.

As the 90 came upon us Smith found a flick from a teasing Oar corner that like so many of today’s chances could have gone anywhere and become anything for either side. It was a game so taut Tony Soprano might have snuffed out a foe with it and no less action packed without any real moment of doom.

Then either side experienced hearts in mouths. Oar ran toward a gauntlet of five men, breaking just inside the Burnley half. Barton who had thrown himself at everything and everyone all day, took a booking for the team. Not giving him the opportunity to test his colleagues’ resolve.

As the injury time ticked down the last kick of the game was a host’s volley from a set piece. It seemed agonisingly close the length of the field away. Had it gone in no harder knock could there have been to take.

There was a sense that as fantastic as the record sixth away win might have been, as much of a foundation for our recent run of excellent form it undoubtedly would become, that taking four points off any top six side goes some way to cementing a season. 0-0 has never seemed so fair, so even. You could see this fixture repeated at least once more this season, I’m not convinced that should it be on the Wembley pitch in rich sunshine the blues would be quite so dulled.
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