Frank of England denies the Clarets: Burnley 0 Derby County 0

It was one of those dire moments when you know it’s a goal and all’s lost.  We had been opened up on our left and when the ball came across to Rodriguez, with the goalmouth gaping and all the time in the world to finish, there was nothing anybody could do to stop him.

Or so it seemed.

The shot arrowed in low and all of our graft, organisation and concentration had been for nothing, surely – but no, Fielding somehow managed to scramble across his line, fling a leg at the shot and avert disaster.

It was an unbelievable save.  Frank has now made up for his errors in the Burnley home game and against Ipswich with crucial and seriously impressive saves in the last two matches.

On the whole, the Burnley game was a strange one.  Derby didn’t really create many clear-cut chances, Shaun Barker missing the best with a free header he couldn’t direct goalwards.  However, the Rams saw plenty of the ball and spent long periods camped out in the Clarets’ half.

This meant that Burnley played, in Tommo’s words, like the away side, defending watchfully before attempting to catch us on the counter-attack if we over-committed – which we very rarely did.

We generally looked comfortable and solid against a decent Burnley attack, but in the final reckoning, Burnley missed at least four presentable chances – the first-minute header which Treacy really should have buried, another header that whistled just over, a curled shot that landed a foot wide, Rodriguez’s close-range shot that Fielding somehow kept out and a wind-assisted cross that left Frank a spectator only to hit the post.  A late spell of Burnley pressure, where the home side got away down their right on two occasions, prompted Clough to bring on Jake Buxton to shore things up and protect the point we’d almost lost.

Bucko did really well, it should be said.  Stationed just in front of the back four, he went about his task with gusto, winning headers and tackles and even playing a surprisingly cultured first-time through pass.

The wind certainly didn’t help the game, pushing goal kicks backwards, sending corners and free kicks into the stand and wrong-footing players on various occasions.   Eddie Howe  made reference to this after the game, claiming that it hampered his side’s ability to play the kind of ‘attractive football’ they wanted to – but how attractive can any side featuring Ross Wallace really be?  And there was certainly nothing attractive about the ludicrous, violent two-footed lunge from Charlie Austin that Lee Probert somehow saw fit not to even issue a yellow card for.

Howe went a long way down in my estimation by using his post-match press conference to piously criticise Derby for ‘slowing down the play’ from the first minute.  It’s a fact that Frank takes his time over goal kicks when necessary, but Derby were by no means taking the piss at any stage – unlike, for example, Burnley at Pride Park.

Having taken the lead through Austin that day, Burnley treated us to a diabolically flagrant display of timewasting.  Off the top of my head, the unsavoury shenanigans included two players going down to feign injury simultaneously and Wallace fitting in a Hamlet-esque soliloquy in the time it took him to exit stage right on being subbed.

On the way home from Turf Moor, we felt that Derby deserved the draw, but I did make the point to Tommo that when the game was condensed into a highlights package, it would look like Burnley were all over us.  Nothing could be further from the truth, but it’s certainly the case that we were unable to forge any real chances against a strong and organised Burnley defence.  Theo was never on his game, especially a first-half collision left him limping, leading to his eventual substitution for Ryan Noble.

Noble, who made some good runs and took up good positions, looks a bright player who may well come into his own during his loan with Derby.  Highly rated by England U’20s coach Brian Eastick, he will have a chance to make himself a Rams hero in the forthcoming home games against Stoke and crisis club Nottingham Forest.

The unbeaten run extends to six games then and although the Potters could very well put an end to that, the players should be bouncing into the East Midlands Derby with real hunger to put the seemingly relegation-bound Red Dogs to the sword.  They can’t possibly be as atrocious as they were at Leicester in the FA Cup – and certainly won’t be if both Chambers and Morgan return to the defence, allowing Moussi to go back into midfield.  McGugan will presumably also return, adding a bit more goal threat than the decrepit Boateng and Greening can.

Anyway, more on that in due course.  With all this excitement, I’ve overlooked the away league match against Barnsley next Tuesday, which, with the two big games coming up, somehow eluded my memory for a while!

LEAGUE POSITION: 11th

LEAGUE FORM: DWWWWL

ODDS TO BEAT NEXT OPPONENTS: Stoke City (H, FA Cup Fourth Round) 5/2

The Stoke game is a cracking opportunity for the team to show how far they’ve come since the second half of last season, but it will be a stern test.  The back four and goalkeeper have done fantastically well of late against Championship attacks, but it would seem likely that Tony Pulis will name a strong team, in every sense of the word.

At set pieces and in open play, we can expect the Potters to be far more difficult to handle than the teams we’ve been facing week in, week out.  It will take an immense effort from the players to get a result.

GOALS:
Theo Robinson 8
Steve Davies 5
Craig Bryson 4
Callum Ball 3
Jamie Ward 3
Jeff Hendrick 2
Chris Maguire 2
Tomasz Cywka 1
Paul Green 1
Tamas Priskin 1
(own goals 1)

ASSISTS:
Ben Davies 9
Craig Bryson 6
Jamie Ward 4
Lee Croft 2
Paul Green 2
Gareth Roberts 2
Theo Robinson 2
Tomasz Cywka 1
Steve Davies 1
Jeff Hendrick 1
Mark O’Brien 1
Jason Shackell 1
Nathan Tyson 1

DIRECT GOAL INVOLVEMENT (DGI)*

1. Theo Robinson 0.294
2. Craig Bryson 0.294
3. Ben Davies 0.265
4. Jamie Ward 0.206
5. Steve Davies 0.176

*DGI = Goals player directly assisted or scored / total goals

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