The last time we convened for a league game, I had one key question in my head. 'Is Steve Bruce going to be any good?'
Today, that question seems horribly outdated. It's like owning a Nokia brick phone after the smartphone had been invented. It's like gas lamps post Edison, it's like worshipping Gary Madine* It's all so last year**.
*He's a goal machine
**about 2 weeks ago
Today my thoughts are different. They go a bit like this:
Proposition a) Burton are palpably not very good. They've been rubbish so far, even Critch beat them 4-0, and they seem to have been getting relegated for about 2 years and they couldn't even keep hold of Bez Lubala.
Proposition b) We're palpably decent, we've just played 2 of the better sides in the division away, deservedly beaten both and, for good measure put one of the more 'Burton-y' level sides in the division to the sword before that. We look like a proper team, have multiple threats going forward and several players playing the football of their careers.
Conventional logic would say: home win.
Tangerine logic says: A+B = agonising, frustrating, calamitous and self inflicted home defeat that leaves you wondering what the point of anything is and why you even bother with this stupid club anyway.
I'm actually a bit worried that I'm not as worried as I normally would be to be honest. Steve Bruce has got me believing despite my battle hardened seaside paranoia. I think we can overcome the inevitable and puncture the (Pirelli) tyres of the men in yellow and black.
Belief, hope, even a tiny little bit of expectation.
It's a dangerous thing...
---
The start of the game is flat. The ground seems quiet. I'm kind of thinking 'this might be one of those games that we just never get going' when out of nowhere we get going. It only takes one attack, one crossfield pass, one run from the Rapter, one snarling tackle from Coulson and we're up and off and the drum is going, the noise is swirling and we're back in the heart of where we all want to be.
Burton don't look as shit as I expected them to be though. They're a bit ragged with the ball at times, but they often move it nicely and move for it quite well. Things are more even than I hoped they would be. We press a bit but without Dom Ballard we've not got the same dynamism up front and we're not stealing the ball as we've done in the last few games.
Burton even carve out a few chances, though Albie Morgan rasps a really nice effort wide for us. It's all quite level. Aren't we supposed to be hammering them?
Lee Evans swings it in. Offiah darts towards the near post and... It's a goal! It's so simple. Since Critchley left we've been absolutely brilliant from set pieces. I don't know what it is, but we just seem to have more players in the box, more movement and more commitment to get to the ball first - it helps that Evans has the ability to put the ball where it needs to go time after time, but it's also about what happens when it gets there.
I'm settled down by that. We all are.
There are two absolutely sublime bits of play from the Rapter, one, where he's in the corner, hemmed in, absolutely no way out and he shows the ball, takes it back, looks to be looking for a pass and then squeezing, like an alley cat through a tiny crack between two wooden panels of a fence, he's through a gap that barely looked to be there, all along the touchline and pulling it across to be stabbed just wide. The second is actually better if that's possible because it involves the most exquisite use of the bounce and spin of a ball I think I've ever seen, just brushing it with his legs, using his feet to shape the direction of the bounce to what he needed it to be - it's like watching a master potter at work, sculpting beauty from the mundane, shaping a lump of clay into graceful lines with the merest of contact. I could watch him do stuff like that for the rest of my life and never get bored. I'm so, so, so glad he's as good, perhaps even better than I thought he might be, because it's been so long since we've seen someone come through like this.
There are moments when the freshness of Apter seems to contrast with the age of Rhodes. One of them isn't always in the right place, but has the energy to get to where they need. The other is always in the right place but just can't seem to find the next gear to make it count.
Jordan Gabriel has a wonderfully mental charge forward where he closes almost every Burton defender down chasing for the ball like a dog let off the leash on the beach. How did we not let this man play football for half the games he was fit for last season? The crowd rise as one. Evans keeps spinning it out wide, Offiah is imperiously sweeping up. CJ is even doing little give and goes and running round to receive clever passes.
That doesn't tell the whole story though. We're not having it all our own way. Burton aren't giving in and they are a threat. Tyrer has to clear a few from the edge of the box, they slam one into the side netting and then, After Tyrer makes what I can't tell from my end if it's a really good stop or a bit of a fumble, they head a rebounded chance over when it looks like for all the world they're going to score.
---
I've enjoyed us, but I think we've played better. It's not the Tuesday night dominance or the side that blew Charlton away for an hour so. It's ok. It's quite good - but I feel like we're only slightly on top as opposed to dominating.
---
A recurring frustration for me over the last few seasons is that we've not rarely seemed to get better after half time. Today is absolutely not one of those days. We come out fizzing, running hard, playing it first time. We've got that lovely confident sense of patience to play when we want combined with an urgency to make things happen.
There's no one more urgent than Apter - the ball is slid forward, he takes it. There's an expectant hum, he's got maybe 45 yards to go, he's going, like a champion wind surfer, riding the waves, skipping and jumping, dipping and turning but going through everything the sea throws up... he's outside, he's inside, the ball is not so much glued to him, but as if it's on elastic - he shows it, but then seems to draw it back to his feet, and he's on his way still, the man behind me can't help the words 'this is going to be a great goal' tumbling from his mouth and as Apter pulls back the hammer, the powder fires and it's not actually so much the expected musket shot because he's far to clever to give them what they expect, but more of an Amazonian blow dart finish, precise, poison tip arrow, right into the bottom corner that the keeper gets nowhere near...
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
So many times last season, it seemed so obvious that the energy and impetuosity of youth was lacking. The wee lad is leaping and punching the air. He's clenching his fists as he's mobbed in front of the Kop. I feel nothing but pure light and elation. All goals are great goals, but when the goals is a goal scored by a kid you've been watching progress for years and daring to hope that one day he'd do this and you'd have this very moment you are living now, than that is even better than a Gary Goal and truly, the greatest goal of all.
Breathe out. We've got this.
Hang on, Gabes, shit! An awful pass across his own box is snaffled by a Burton forward, he whistles a dipping effort and somehow Harry Tyrer arches his back, leaping, springing incredibly athletically from a position where he seemed to be caught on his heels and palms the ball over the top. It's a truly magnificent stop.
Rhodes' light might be dimming a little from his brilliant best, but there's nothing at all shabby about the ball he turns round the corner for CJ. GO ON CEEJ! He's doing what he does best, just punting it ahead and charging forward, into the box, through on goal and the keeper is making a good low stop.
They fling a ball, in, for once neither Offiah or Casey get to it and one of the blue shirted/green shorted (what a weird colour combination) men stoops and again, Tyrer pulls off a brilliant save, this time kind of collapsing and then flinging himself out as he falls to make a low save that big keeper should struggle with, but he really doesn't. It's arguably better than the first one as he has so little time to react.
Rhodes and Morgan have gone off, Albie getting serenaded to the touchline after another good game. The ball breaks for us, Carey spots a space and races forward into it, he looks to go inside, but plays a nice disguised ball to Fletcher outside of him instead, Fletcher takes it well, looks up, sees Evans, slides it across. Evans looks to have lost the shooting chance as he seems to take forever to take the ball from one foot to another, but just as I'm thinking he's fumbled his lines, he delivers, with pitch perfect elocution as he fairly leathers it into the top corner to send us into raptures.
That's the game.
Burton, to be fair to them, don't give up. They're a much better side and have given a much better display than either the scoreline or their league position would suggest. They certainly seem a better team than the one who beat us over Christmas last year. Such is football though. Win when you look crap, lose when you look good. Their subs definitely improve them - the 17 year old Ronelle Donovan in particular. He has a bit of the vibe of Nya Kirby in hair, physique and playing style - a player who really impressed us at a similar age - but who has now fallen out of the league altogether (he's currently in the Isthmian League South East division) - a fact that makes Rob Apter's emphatic arrival on the stage all the more pleasing, because the promise of youth is never a guarantee of later success.
I can't remember much of the rest of the game except for the strange and genuinely soul affirming feeling of applauding CJ for running back and getting stuck in in a way he's almost never seemed to do. Whatever Bruce has said to him, it's worked. He's still CJ in essence, but he's making the most of what he has and it's as if he's twice the player he was a few weeks ago.
---
Today was a bit odd - we played really well at points but we didn't convince as much as we have done - and yet, this was our most convincing win of the season. There was something really quite satisfying about the fact we were clinical and also that Tyrer was really very convincing as a good keeper is a prerequisite of a really good team.
The one worry for me is the lack of Ballard. Evans and Morgan were good. Evans and Carey was fine. As long as we've got Evans and... we'll have a chance. Rhodes and Joseph just wasn't quite there. I'm not sure if Joseph was feeling the burn of running two games in one match twice in a week already or if the way he shares pressing with Ballard and they swap over running the ball down just isn't going to happen with Rhodes.
That's a minor question in the grand scheme of things and we all know that if he gets a chance, Jordan Rhodes will bury it, so it's far from a nightmare situation.
In fact, stop twatting on about worries - we're fucking 4th! How did that happen? When and how did we suddenly become actually, really, genuinely, not even joking about it, pretty fucking decent?
I don't understand what is going on. It feels like something is happening. I absolutely didn't expect it. I love it though.
3rd vs 4th on Tuesday under the lights.
What more could you actually want in life?
Onward!
You can follow MCLF on facebook or Twitter or use Follow.it to get posts sent to your email
If you appreciate the blog and judge it worth 1p or more, then a donation to one of the causes below which help kids and families in Blackpool would be grand.
.jpeg)
