The return of Thomas to full fitness is a massive boost, and Cotterill again underlined why he went to such lengths to land the former Stoke man: “If Wayne is fit and he lostens, that’s important for Thommo because he has alwaysgot an opinion, not to say he’s always wrong, but not to say he’s always right. But he’s got an opinion which is fine. I’m happy for players to have opinions before you start the discussion, it saves a row. But I think he could be, and we spoke about this, I hope for Wayne Thomas’ sake he fulfils what he could fulfil because if you look at some of the players in the Premiership, if Wayne gets things right and is tough and determined, mentally strong, I think Wayne could be playing higher than here. He’s quick, he’s strong, he’s aggressive, sometimes he takes a risk because he feels comfortable, but that’s sometimes the confidence we don’t want to take out of players. You just hope he doesn’t dance on too many balls in our box. I’d rather he headed it and put his foot through it.”
Cotterill is eager for a return to the “Thou Shalt Not Pass” nature of the defence in his first season, and the central defensive area is the most competitive in the squad. He hopes the pressure to keep hold of a shirt will make Burnley meaner:” We are strong there. But it was an area, to be fair, whether it was lack of competition, whether it was age, whether it was getting over injuries quick enough, that caused me a massive headache.I don’t want that headache. If we’ve got four who can play there, we’ve probably got more than four – we might have five – but we’ve probably got four that can play there because the other one will end up playing right-back. But if we’ve got four who can play there, and two are playing there for 46 games, like Sonko and Ingermarsson did for Reading, then good.”
Stephen Foster has added to the options available back there; and Cotterill has been impressed with what he has seen so far: "He’s come in and I think he’s done very well so far. I think he’s a mature young man. It’s funny because he does not look as if he’s rugged or aggressive, but I think quietly, I think he could maybe be a bit of a baby-faced assassin. He could be a little bit like that. I think he’s quite cold, he’s just got that look about him that I think you’d be fooled, if you were up against him. I don’t know if it’s that inner confidence. I think he’s a defender first and foremost. I think he defends; he wants to go tight on a centre-forward. I don’t think he’s going to have too many problems if he feels as though he needs to kick one, not that I’m encouraging him. But I don’t think he needs any problems telling him that. First and foremost defenders have to defend. The other good part about Steve is he’s a source of goals.”
Cotterill feels there are more goals in this side, from the back four and midfield as well as the front men, and has been disappointed in the return from the defenders: “We’ve got potentially people who can score.We are disappointed with the amount of goals we’ve got from defence. We have been disappointed with that, make no bones about that. We seem as though we are harping on about defenders here, and I don’t mean it to be that way, but for the aerial ability we’ve got in the team and for the times they have gone into the box, we are disappointed with the amount of goals.For me a major disappointment is Michael Duff because I know he can score and yet here it’s as though he can’t. He used to get his head on most things when he went up for corners. So that disappoints me. I think that when balls come in your box, invariably you will see defenders get their head on it.We don’t have a problem in our box. It seems to be the opposition’s box we haven’t opened teams up enough.To be honest that’s down to the individual because I think we’ve given them so many different runs, so many different set plays, I think it’s now down to the individual and his own desire to attack the ball. I am sure this season, even in this short space of time, Steve Foster and Thommo will score. How long it will take, I don’t know. Hopefully it’s very, very early, preferably the first ten minutes against QPR. But they will, score, that I am convinced of. Steve attacks the ball, he takes a run up to the ball. To be fair, it takes bravery.”
Foster and Thomas represents a real threat to the Frank Sinclair-John McGreal axis that has served Burnley so well under Cotterill, but the manager is looking to the long term and said: “I think Steve is six foot. It’s funny because he does not look the widest, but he’s very strong, he’s wiry strong. I’ve been quietly impressed with Steve. I really have, I think he’s done OK. We just have to bide our time with that one and see how thing go. We’ve got enough time to look at it. The other side of it that we needed to bring down the average age down, and we have done this and it’s quite a big achievement in a couple of years. When you bring the average age down and take away some of that experience, it’s forever starting something. You’re forever starting it. If we could go on another year or two and get the team even younger, it would be terrific.”
While the defenders battle it out for starting berths, there are a couple of other areas where shirts are up for grabs and Cotterill said: “We really want a couple of people to nail down positions. Obviously I have the nucleus of the side in my head but I think there are a couple more positions that need to be fought for in my opinion. The right side is proving somewhat difficult to nailk down because I am not convinced that everyone who has played there to date has taken their chance. I wouldn’t say it’s our problem side but someone needs to grasp that for me.”
Alan Mahon has fileld the right-sided role as well as playing centyrally on the left and just off the front, and Cotterill said: “Because of what we’re doing with Alan Mahon, we have to be a bit more midfieldish than right-wingerish, but I think that might depend on who you’re playing against, what type of full back you’ve got in there, and who plays full back for you – one will potentially attack more than the other. We give Alan Mahon licence to come in off the line, to go wide and to come in behind the front two at specific times. When the move breaks down, he has to get back with the rest of the team and that will probably be the thing I have to talk to Alan about this season more than about the final third, where we know he can unlock doors for us. He has to be part of that unit because there is no point in him being able to do all those spcial things in the final third if he is not going to help out Jon Harley or Frank Sinclair, depending where he plays.”
While Mahon’s impish quality has already made him a firm favourite among supporters, his deadly accuracy from set pieces in pre-season have caught the eye, and Cotterill admitted: “We had a few free kicks we worked on last year to good effect, but when your team changes, and one of those people standing over the ball changes, sometimes it has a bit of a knock-on effect. But you can either try things, work on things, or just let anyone have a shot, and we might have to give Mahony his head a little bit when he’s in and around the box because we don’t quite know his shooting range yet, although we’ve got a pretty good idea.Hopefully that will be a source of goals, but there was a lkack of goals from our two central midfielders last year with Micah and Ginge – we didn’t get enough goals from them. Chris McCann didn’t do too bad and then all of a sudden he seemed to dry up.”
We have to get more goals was the underlying theme of the pre-season talk with reporter Chris Boden. It was a problem that would remain and would have serious consequences from the end of December until early April. If Cotterill had possessed a crystal ball and been able to foresee what was coming he would no doubt have had sleepless nights long before they actually began to haunt him.
But all that was to come, and until October Burnley played well and got results, none better than the televised game away at Norwich City where there was a terrific 4 – 1 win and classy football to admire. Another stunning result was a 4 – 2 win against Barnsley when they came back from a 0 – 2 deficit. A run of six unbeaten games came up and for the first time in his Burnley career Cotterill won a manager of the month award. With a 1 – 0 win over Ipswich Burnley were just two points behind leaders Cardiff. In mid November they were the last unbeaten away from home team in the League. Sadly Cardiff put an end to that. A win at home against Leeds United got them back on track but it was a crucial game in that an injury to striker Andy Gray put him out of the team for much of the remainder of the season. It was a hammer blow.
By the end of that game Burnley were in fourth place. An approach from Leicester City for Cotterill’s services was rebuffed by the chairman. There were reports that West Brom wanted him. His star was high and rising. With the run of the ball and freedom from injuries there was no reason to suppose that Burnley could not maintain the progress they had made under him. But it was not to be and the Sunderland game on December 16th, 2006, provided defining moments. 2 – 0 up and only ten minutes to go Steve Cotterill made changes and went on the defensive to shut up shop and see out the game. Ignoring the old maxim, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, the substitutions did not work. Sunderland scored twice in those final minutes and it is fair to assume that Cotterill was as stunned and angry as the supporters. The game was number three of a total of 19 games without a win spread over four months.
Significantly, also in December, a new director joined the board. This was Brendan Flood, Managing Director of Modus, then a thriving property development company. He was ambitious, go-ahead and had money to invest in the club. With Flood’s money Cotterill was able to replace Andy Gray with Ade Akinbiyi, bringing him back from Sheffield United where he had eventually languished. Alas, Ade was not a success in this second spell and there were at least two directors angry at the wasted money and the way that his return had been sealed without their consultation.
The dreadful run of results continued, the football was poor. Supporters eventually began to question Steve Cotterill’s ability to stop the slide. After a defeat away at QPR the manager referred to the loss of Andy Gray:
“Everybody is hurting and at the moment it is tough but I will support the players all the way, even when they do things that upset and disappoint you.We have shown we can do it and we know wecan do it but at the mokent we are down and need a lucky break. We need something to go for us because at the moment they are the same players they were earlier in the season. We will get back there but one thing you can’t do is give them a confidence pill. We were undone by corbers, today we had a nightmare with corners, we faded, and we looked devoid of confidence.
It’s funny but we haven’t won since we lost Andy Gray. If you lose your best players it doesn’t help. People say that one man doesn’t make a team. Well I’d like to change that statement – I think one man does make a team. You look back at all the great sides; would Argentina have won the World Cup if Maradona hadn’t played for them? I think one man does make a team. Look at Chelsea without John Terry.
We’ve brought in Ade but Ade is nowhere near as fit as he was last time he was here. He’s yards off the pace, we know that and there’s more we can about that. At the moment we’ve just got to keep going.”
There were touches of desperation in those words and the references to the missing Andy Gray were almost plaintive. Ade had come back musclebound, having spent too much time pumping iron at Sheffield. He scored just two goals.
The agony was far from over. Not even the acquisition of international centre half Steve Caldwell in the transfer window made a difference. But the 0 – 1 defeat at home to Leicester was indicative of the poor luck that befell Burnley. It was a McGreal own goal of the comedy variety, the sort of goal you could show on a Christmas video. The ball ping ponged around in the Burnley box. Thomas cleared it but the ball rebounded off McGreal’s knee into the net. The manager was as forthright as ever.
“It certainly looks as though our luck is out after that 90 minutes.On another day we’d have got the points, we had enough chances to win two games. We’re desperate for something to happen, never known a spell like it; it’s maybe the worst of my career. What you get from me is an honest opinion, and when you’re not winning people sometimes want to turn that round and have a little bit of a dig. That’s alright because I’ve had lots of good things said in two and a half years here, and I can take the rough times with the good ones. It can change as it did in the last eight games last season when we lost one in eight and kept five clean sheets. We’d had a bad run then. You do your best and at the moment our best isn’t good enough, so we’ve got to keep going, keep working, do all the things that we were doing earlier in the season that took us to great victories awy from home. The run is unbelievable really; certainly when we look at how we started the season.
The other night we deserved to win the game, and one goes in off Johnny Mac’s knee, tell me what you can do about that one.We’ve had penalty shouts over the last few weeks, and not got them. You’ll get people who have a moan and groan about confidence, do they know the lads personally to comment? It’s all well and good mimicking my remaerjks, taking the mickey out of what I say, but do they know the lads and what they go through? They’re playing their way out of it, they are determined.At the moment we’re inches away from scoring a goal. When Ade and Andy get better, we’ll get better. The quicker we get back to scoring goals and keeping clean sheets, the better.”
At halftime during one game the DJ must have had a sense of humour when he played ‘I’m sending out an SOS’ by Police. At halftime in the Leicester game he played Ian Dury’s classic, ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’. Less funny was the local radio station interview with Cotterill when it was clear that this was a man under pressure ready to fly off the handle if provoked. The interview went smoothly until the interviewer suggested that fans were seeing the next game as a ‘must win’ game. Cotterill turned on the interviewer and grilled him. “Who’s told you that then… how many have told you that… how many people was that… how many… I’m waiting for you to tell me… How long was the radio show...? So how many calls… twenty, thirty, forty, fifty.” Somehow equilibrium was restored and the next question was asked: “What would you say to fans worried by worried about the League position and results?” Cotterill abruptly terminated the interview.
Listeners were divided in their response. Some thought the manager was embarrassing and handled it all badly. Others sympathised seeing him as a man under pressure fielding some stupid questions. It was, however, reasonable to think that he was frustrated and baffled at the sequence of results, a sequence that had included a number of draws where he might have felt a win was deserved. Never comfortable with the media, always looking and sounding on edge, this was one interview too far under the circumstances. This was a man seeing his team having no luck, the tiniest mistakes punished, penalty claims being ignored and not really having any answers. The best striker was still unfit. Akinbiyi was a shadow. There had been directors’ meetings where there had been strong differences of opinion. He was not every director’s cup of tea. There was no one to blame but himself. This was his team. He had bought or acquired them. They were not inherited so he could not blame any previous manager. This was probably not the best time to go on ‘live’ radio and presenter Gary Hickson later revealed that it had certainly been Cotterill who had ended it.
And still there was worse to come and endure. A 0 – 1 defeat at lowly Southend United was the last straw for many suppporters who wanted Cotterill replacing. Southend to make it even more depressing had scored in the last minute from a gifted opportunity. There have been many grim displays in Burnley’s long history and this was one of them. Andrew Firmin in the London Supporters’ magazine expressed his opinions. There was a problem however, a recently renewed contract made it too costly for the impoverished club to dismiss the manager.
“The day after the Southend defeat, I found myself periodically checking my mobile phone for text messages.What I was half expecting – hoping – was to see that Steve Cotterill had been dismissed as Burnley manager.It seemed to ne to be after Southend to be absolutely the right thing to do, and the best course of action to maximise our chances of remaining in this Division. If I had been Barry Kilby, the first thing I would have done on that Wednesday morning would be to offer the manager my best wishes and then set about identifying a temporary replacement who could motivate the team and get them playing to the best of their abilities for the final ten games.
I am aware that this is all rather easier said than done. It isn’t so long ago that Steve Cotterill was the benficiary of an extended contract, something that made me uneasy at the time.
There would presumably be a substantial pay-off to negotiate, and one can only hope that if dismissal were to be considered, the likely cost of action woudn’t be a decisive factor. Then we’d have to find a replacement at short notice, at an awkward time of the season, and with a backroom lacking in plausible candidates to succeed, even on a caretaker basis. I remain convinced that the short term boost given by a new manager, particularly one who could revert to the basics, start picking the players in their best positions, and get the team playing honestly and working hard again, would have made the difference in keeping us up. A couple of wins and the odd draw should still be enough to do it, but it’s hard to see where those might come from when we haven’t won a match since November and scored only one goal this month. We’re now level on points with sides which have been fighting relegation all season; time to end denial, surely. Calling for a change at the top always looks extreme, although I can tell you I wasn’t the only one hoping for that message on Wednesday. You are entitled after such a barren run to ask questions of the manager.
I can’t think of a Burnley manager in recent decades who would have got such an easy ride over such a sustained period of poor results. Our manager has always been an impressive talker about the game, and clearly that has helped him. Of course Barry Kilby doesn’t make hasty decisions about managers, a policy which has been borne out in the past, so in reality there as probably always little prospect of getting that message. Forme, if it was going to be done, then after Southend was the time to do it. So now, for better or worst, we have to assume Steve Cotterill is our manager for the rest of the season and the next game at home to Luton looks utterly crucial.
The next game against Luton, a team down at the bottom, was one of the worst ever seen at Turf Moor and ended in a 0 – 0 draw. A win was seen as essential, a win was expected. No one thought that the barren run could continue against a team as poor as Luton. But it did, and by now supporters were voting with their feet as attendances fell and even season ticket holders found better things to do on a Saturday afternoon, as Burnley sat just two points above the bottom three. And yet the team received a long and loud reception as they came out willing them to a victory. But it was not to be and the pre-game cheers were replaced by boos and abuse at the end. It was reasonable to think that any other manager would have been dismissed by now. The game set a new club record for a run of games without a win – 19 in all. The manager bared his soul before the next game at home to Plymouth on April 3rd.
“After two and a half years here, working on the budget I have had and potentially leaving to go to three other clubs, which I haven’t done to sign a new contract here, then somewhere along the line I think that is earning time and credit. I do more than the average football manag does at the club and there is enough fight in me to keep our players going. One thing I don’t do is give in and I will fight on until it is right. We need that little bit of something different to spark us. We are in this run where we haven’t won for 18 League games but we have drawn eight of them. If you isolate them, there is an injury time penalty at Ipswich, a penalty given against us at Coventry that wasn’t, an own goal against Leicesterwhen we dominated the game. You could go on and on and even in the gameswe have lost we have only lost two by more than one goal. The goal difference tells you there is not a lot wrong with us. But our ‘goals for’ column tells you where the problem is this season. Perhaps not scoring an early goal makes them edgy.That belief factor can last us so long and we have to maintain that strength of character and belief factor for longer. Nobody was more disappointed or angry than I was about not winning against Luton. I have never been ona nything like this in my life. The longest it’s gone on for before would be something like five games, before winning the next few on the spin. It’s amazing the pressure that is put on clubs to win football matches. We are competing in a League that is very difficult to compete in against teams who have between 20,000 and 30,000 people watching them, and it’s tough. But you have to show the fighting spirit to make sure we get enough points on the board between now and the end of the season.
It’s tough down at the bottom and we’ve got to try and make sure we fight our way out of this. It’s a fine balance between trying to whip them up too much and getting them to go out and pass a ball. There’s a happy medium but when the players are a bit short on confidence, or there are a few moans and groans, my view is to get them angry. I would be angry and more aggressive, and that is the only way you can come through times like this, to fight your way through them. I don’t think there’s any other remedy. The tough times in life are probably the best times because you don’t learn anything in the good times. You take them for granted. In the tough times you have to come out fighting tooth and nail and that is how Steve Cotterill is. But I cannot give every player the same mindset and determination. 95% of supporters have been very good to me and nothing changes my view of them, just because you haven’t won in 18 games. You are bound to get a few shouts when the ground is quiet and the team’s not up and running. But you have to do your best to ignore those isolated shouts. I tell you what could be worse – not looking to change anything to try and make us better.
One thing he did try was an addition to the squad. Ade was dropped and in came nippy striker Paul McVeigh from Norwich. What a difference he made and the inevitable happened on April 3rd with a home win over Plymouth Argyle. This wasn’t just any old win, this was a convincing win. The football flowed and as soon as the first goal went in you could see heads lift and confidence roar back. The half time score was an astonishing 3 – 0 with McVeigh getting the second and then Elliot capping the night with a fourth in the second half. This was proper football totally the opposite of the dire stuff against Luton. Pace appeared from somewhere, with accurate passing and intricate one-touch stuff fit for a football connoisseur. Another loan acquisition, Djemba-Djemba, pulled all the strings. Gray was sublime even though he failed to score. Every player was up for it.
At 9.45 Steve Cotterill walked around the touchline very slowly and deliberately, punching the air and applauding the fans. The players had gone. As he approached the tunnel he turned again to face the fans and pointed to his heart. It was show of emotion and a fantastic touch with which to end the night. His post-match comments were brimful of genuine pleasure and relief.
“I am delighted for the players, for the chairman and the directors who have stood beside me because it has been tough. Early mornings, late nights, waking in the middle of the night to write things down and trying them the next day. I think it is probably the toughest time I have had to face in my managerial career. There will be a percentage of supporters I need to convince, but those who have stood by me have been first class. Our chances went in tonight and there were lots of people who could vie for man of the match, but for me, Andy Gray was absolutely immaculate and I am sorry he didn’t get his goal. Football is my life and over the past few months and over the past few months there hasn’t been much of it, so I am going to enjoy tonight and tomorrow.”
Skipper Steve Caldwell made a telling comment: “He wears his heart on his sleeve and he cares.” The Plymouth win amazingly was the first of five in the final eight games of the season. There was an astonishing 1 – 0 win away at soon to be promoted Birmingham. West Brom who finished fourth were beaten 3 – 2. But the final two games brought defeats to end things tamely. For over 4 months during the winless run, Steve Cotterill had lived on the good will, patience and appreciation of the supporters and chairman. That appreciation was based on their understanding that money was tight, there was never going to be a big squad where players would compete for places, and that this was place where managers were always hamstrung by the sale of their best players. Kyle Lafferty would be the next, although it would be a new manager who would see to that one.
Manager Cotterill summed up season 2007/08.
“I think what can be described as a good season for me would have been in the top six, because that’s an aim that would have been difficult. But, certainly, what I’ve done personally is tread water for another year. I think this year is one I won’t ever forget, how we started – we always knew it would be tough anyway to stay up thee, irrespective of injuries or suspensions. But when they kick in with us we struggle. We do that every year, not having the strength in depth of replacing your key players that make others play.I don’t know if that will change. I don’t know the answer to that yet. We do need to have a stronger squad, because that’s why we end up in the scenario we end up in, and we will need to bring players in. Players will have to go and other players will have to be addressed to make room for new arrivals. I would have thought there would be a few discussions at the end of the season as regards that.”
Cotterill’s comment about treading water for another year suggested that he thought this had been a wasted year for him personally. His plan to manage in the Premiership by the age of 42 was becoming less likely barring a miracle. It would certainly not happen at Burnley with a player budget of just £5million to eke out; whilst other clubs had budgets three times that. The book that director Brendan Flood brought out in 2009 would illustrate the frustrations Cotterill was feeling.
Ambitious Clarets boss Steve Cotterill is realistic enough to admit the Championhip is getting tougher. But he feels his squad, as they showed in patches last season, will make life difficult for the big guns in the Division. Incredibly Burnley and Preston, promoted together in 2000 are the longest serving clubs in the Championship, with every other club in the division for the 2006/07 season having either gone up or down in that time. The likes of Leeds, Southampton, Leicester, West Brom, Birmingham, Sunderland, Wolves, Crystal Palace, Derby, Ipswich, Norwich and Coventry have all plied their trade in the Premiership in the intervening years.
