Alas another season begins...

By Turftalker
August 8 2005

On Saturday morning we were all equal in the Coca-Cola Championship. For the first and indeed last time of the season every fan could dream and hope for the best.

Every season I dare to believe, I dare to hope and I just want to dispel the summer's gloom.

I want to forget the paper thin squad, the lack of financial investment in the playing squad and the average pre-season results. After all, a football club's success depends on what 11 men do on a pitch for 90 minutes 46 times does it not?

At 2:55pm thousands of clarets hoped that the Burnley team which came out would rip Crewe apart. We wanted to feel as though we were ready for a season of fun and success, yeet by 5pm that was sadly extinguished.

Lets not over-emphasise the importance of this first game. It was only number 1 of 46, and you can easily get promoted without those three points. But where this result was important was that is eradicated the fantasy I have that this season will be the one. I know it is not based on much reality, and I equally know that I would happily take 21st place now, but I do not think I am the only claret who just hopes, hopes, we can provide a shock to the pundits and bookies and actually cruise up the table.

I saw enough on Saturday to realise, that for another year at least, this is unlikely to happen.

Clearly the clarets have a number of very good players at this level, but as we all know we just do not have enough of them. To me personally the most glaring gap in our squad is for a player I feel every successful team must have. No it is not a left back, left winger or even a striker! We need a midfield general.

On Saturday Burnley was just crying out for a younger Kevin Ball. The man who has still not been replaced by the clarets. We needed a player to shout at the others to get moving, we needed a man to make the last ditch challenge, stop the ball and thread through the killer pass. We needed the man who would sit there and lead by pure example.

Manchester United have been successful and they have Roy Keane, Chelsea have Lampard and Arsenal had Vieira - but who do we have?

- Hyde is clearly a talent, a creative runner who can score the odd wonder goal. - James O'Connor is a willing player, happy to snap at the oppositions midfield. - Gareth O'Connor is the unknown quantity with a good shot.

But none of them are vocal, none of them offer that consistent drive which is essential.

So while Steve Cotterill works hard over the coming weeks to find those extra players, I just hope a General can be recruited.

Up the clarets!