Andy Munro is more impressed with Blues than with opponents Burnley.
You’d have thought that there had been a footballing robbery of Brinks Mat proportions, the way that the Blues draw at Turf Moor was presented by the media.
None more so than the infantile Channel 5 Football League ‘Show’; the good news on that is that Championship fans don’t have to wait until midnight to see highlights on the Beeb but the bad news is that the new programme is a mish mash of badly presented match clips in front of an audience which may be physically alive but mentally…..?????
This week one of the guest pundits was a diminutive Jamie Cureton, allegedly once a legend at Bristol Rovers. With his sticky out ears, he looked remarkably like the poison dwarf as he lambasted the referee and gave no credit to the Blues – obviously still smarting that we knocked his old club out of the League Cup in midweek.
Anyway, the first half saw Blues looking relatively untroubled and, yet again, the Donaldson-Tora combo worked a treat. As one would expect of an ex-Barca protégé, Tora knew exactly when to make his runs to maximum effect and coolly slotted home the opener. Gray and Cotterill looked dangerous out wide whilst everybody else busily buzzed around not allowing Burnley to settle.
It’s true that Burnley should probably have had a penalty but I’ve seen worse wrestling matches in the area go unpunished. However, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Blues hit the woodwork and worked the keeper in a way that the Clarets singularly failed to do in the first period apart from their equaliser from a set piece..
It was, in fairness, a different story in the second period as Burnley turned the screw but the converted penalty gave us some breathing space. Yes, Donaldson went down in a way that would have even made Ashley Young proud but the fact remains that there was contact, albeit of feather-light proportions.
Once Burnley equalised they went for broke but could have been caught on the break, although not with subs like Robbo and Davies. Still, it was a point well-earned on the road against a team with a proud home record who, even with their frugal approach to footballing life, had spent at least twenty times more than the boys in blue. Sean Dyche had his usual moan afterwards but he was obviously watching a different game to me.
