The World Cup over, the season ahead. No better place to wash away the taste of corporate polish and celebrity glamour than Barrow.
If the UK's average town centre speaks of urban decline then Barrow is the king of the hill.
It's easy to sneer at Barrow - but I like the place. It might have smashed windows and boarded up shops but it's got grand red brick buildings, Walney Island is a strange and windswept sliver of magic. Piel Island has a fucking castle on it for fucks sake. You don't get a castle on an island in Reading do you? From industry to wilderness in barely one move. I'd rather Barrow than some none-place southern satellite town. My soul is attuned to smashed brick and Buddlea, to the wild unkempt nature that springs from the accident of demolition and decay - fuck planning, fuck mown grass - give me a riot of anarchic weeds and the majesty of random selection over a clump of bushes planted by some developer.
As ever, I digress. The football.
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A couple of decent CJ crosses early on, Ennis drags one wide after being slipped in by Lyons and an ok ball in from the Finn that no one could get onto.
Barrow have a couple of chances from distance. Lyons and their left winger, who looks like what you might get if you ordered a rubbish Zlatan figure from a Chinese import site, have some ridiculous handbags where Lyons throws himself to the floor as if they're half heartedly rehearsing a rubbish WWF fight. The referee is disinterested. For once I'm on the side of the man in whatever colour the ref was wearing today.
Coulson, playing midfield is down in agony inside 20 minutes. Who'd have imagined such a thing? He's ok though. Mainly I've noticed that he's gone for more of a Midwest trucker mullet this season, which for me, is a step up from the soft wash perm of 2526. Please can we not play Hayden in midfield again?
We have a slick move, but there's no finish. Perhaps scoring is beneath us. We're purists after all.
Ashworth drops a back pass carelessly short basically at the exact moment I think "Ashworth is playing well." A slick move (of sorts) where we manage to pass it all the way back to our own goal for no reason. That's the the sort of thing purists like.
A Karoy shot, taking it on the turn, driving a few strides, drawing a save. Coulson forcing a second save from the rebound. Seemingly we do want to score after all. How very uncultured of us.
Nwankwo is caught out, but recovers well, they get the shot in anyway, BPF sticks out a leg and stops it in a rudimentary but effective manner. It's a moment with massive playground vibes.
Lyons is beaten in the tackle, but then heads it out from under our bar, after the slickest Barrow move so far, stringing passes along the edge of the box from left to right and then a decent ball in.
We do a terrible corner routine, Coulson gets it short and is immediately tackled. One from Squires Gate. Give them all a bonus for the next level thinking.
I'm not really concentrating when Barrow score. I think it's a suicide ball from BPF and someone (maybe Jordan Brown) is robbed, anyway, I've tuned back in in time to see the Bluebirds (playing today in black and white) waltzing right through and sliding the ball past the stranded keeper.
Probably the best remaining chance falls to CJ whose heavy touch makes his effort to control a diagonal into more of a neat back pass. The game drifts to half time.
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We've made a bit, but we've not looked hugely like actually scoring. I was prepared that we might be a bit short at the back (and we are) but we've not really shown any particularly defined patterns of play going forward. Karoy, has, as you'd expect, been tidy and energetic but we've not really put it together around him.
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It's a sluggish start before 3 quick fire chances, Niskannen gets in twice and pulls back, no one can reach the first, Taylor wastes the second by holding on too long, twisting to make the angle but only succeeding in getting tackled. CJ clipping in the third and Ennis turns on it and has it blocked over the bar.
Things briefly liven up a bit with subs. Bowler a genius pass (maybe genius is pushing things, but it's been a game devoid of silk and his little slip through is caressed, threaded, a moment of vision in a game of huffing straight lines) but the overlapping Lyons is unable to find anyone.
Bowler again, a mazy run and a toe poke creates a chance. Kylian misses a golden opportunity as he dithers, looking more like a centre back than a centre forward. Charles blasts the clearance back and then Brown slaps it wide.
Then Dion is limping and now he's sitting down. More changes and we're in the dreamland scenario of CJ up front with Kouassi.
I don't want to spoil the rest of the blog but you might be able to guess the outcome...
We make very little from this point. Upton has a good go in midfield, Jack Richardson gets wide and attacks quite well but it's fair to say Barrow end the game on top.
Their second goal is also difficult to see, watching through multiple stanchions from the British bake off tent of an away stand is like watching a glitchy video with bits of the narrative missing, but my impression of it is, that Barrow get down our right too easily and then a floating, drifting cross is completely missed by everyone and is either bundled home at the far post or drifts in - either way, it's that same goal we concede too often.
There's time for CJ to earn a rousing 'Ole' for a classic bit of air kicking mis-control as he darts down the touchline and runs the ball out of play in a way that only CJ has truly mastered... and then, we're done.
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Of course, it's only preseason and of course, minutes and legs and all of that. Had we turned up and smashed Barrow out of site then I'd be writing about it not meaning much - that said, it's not so much that Ashworth, Nwankwo and Lyons isn't a serious prospect as a back three that concerns me as much as the lack of creativity evident. Granted, no Morgan, Clarkson (or indeed Honeyman) but we didn't really have a convincing effort at getting it down and controlling the game. We clipped it long quite a lot and ceded possession fairly easily as a result.
Of course, it's just a runabout - but we couldn't really impose a game on Barrow, ultimately, it was them who imposed their game on us - yes, rugged, yes, physical, yes 'limited' - but exactly what we've struggled against in the real stuff for what seems like far too long.
We're definitely short. As much as I'd love Kouassi to be the physical game changing forward we've not had for ages, he looked far from it today. The back 3 isn't an option for the actual games, we're a wing back short and looked lacking in imagination in midfield.
This game doesn't matter at all - but there's clearly still work to do. Had we had a solid defence then we'd likely have had a foundation to build on - but we didn't and even with Horsfall and Casey (and big Mike) there's questions about mobility and fluidity.
Time will tell and all of that. Actually, I think time will probably eat away at us all and everything we know and the universe will collapse in upon itself - but in the short term hopefully we get a few more in because we definitely need it.
Onward.
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