Argyle 3 Burnley 1

By: Jim | February 24th, 2008

Four wins in a row. Two goals conceded in six games. Fifth in the table. Barely-controlled hysteria among the Green Army. Surely this crazy dream, this unhinged fantasy that Argyle can get promotion with a squad of who-are-yas, CCC journeymen and Scotch chancers isn’t on, is it?

If you were to make an assessment based on yesterday’s victory over promotion rivals Burnley (one place and two points behind us at kick-off), the answer would be emphatically no. For much of the first half, Argyle were leaden-footed, lacking in inspiration and seemed to have lost the pre-match tactical battle. Owen Coyle is nobody’s fool, and he juggled his formation to deal with the threat of MacLean’s link-up play. Joey Gudjonsson (brother of former Argyle playmaker Bjarni, who nobody liked except me) played the sitter very effectively for 45 minutes in a 4-1-4-1 explicitly designed (I assume) to combat Argyle’s 4-4-1-1. MacLean had no room. Neither did Peter Halmosi, who was double-teamed all game by experienced full back Graham Alexander and the game’s best player, Wade Elliott, whenever he got the ball. Consequently Argyle were starved of creativity and were forced on to the back foot, with Robbie Blake marauding down our right and Elliott, who only had Gary Sawyer to contend with, causing mayhem down our left. It was he who created the Clarets’ goal, picking up a loose ball from an Abdou mistake by the by-line, slipping past Sawyer and dropping a cross on to Kyle Lafferty’s head, who nodded it back for James O’Connor to head home on 19 minutes.

Argyle had taken the lead seven minutes earlier courtesy of one of those howlers from Brian Jensen that will no doubt appear on DVD at some stage. A free kick out on the left hand side was lumped into the box and headed clear by Caldwell. Nalis took it on the volley and hit a strong shot straight at Jensen who inexplicably allowed the ball to squirm from his grasp, between his legs and into the net. Undeserved - but very welcome.

At 1-1 the game looked as though it was going to slip away from the Greens. But gradually, thanks mainly to the work of Nalis and Abdou and (though no-one else at the back of the grandstand appeared to notice) MacLean, Argyle started to get themselves back into some sort of rhythm, began stringing a few passes together and exerted some pressure on the Burnley goal. And it’s fair to say that, despite all their possession and pressure, Burnley were creating really not much at all in the way of clearcut chances. Following a sustained siege on the Barn Park end, when the chance seemed to have gone, MacLean played Halmosi in with the delicatest (is that a word) of flicks and at the second attempt rifled in.

It should have been 3-1 before the break. Jermaine Easter, who’d renewed his intimate acquaintance with every single blade of the Home Park turf during the first half raced clear of the Burnley defence and, one-on-one, forced a superb save from Jensen, when he might have been better advised to go round him. The mood darkened again, with most of us - self included - grimly forecasting that we’d live to rue it. And for the first twenty minutes of the second half, Burnley did their best to make us - hammering on the door, though again without creating any meaningful chances, bar an Elliott cross that Lafferty was only a Rizla away from and a McCann shot that squeaked past Luke’s left hand post. As in the first half, Argyle gradually worked their way back into the game, and Halmosi’s second, driven in from the right hand side after twisting past the hapless Jon Harley was greeted with a roar of delight and relief.

And that, more or less, was that. Wotton and Mackie came on for Easter and Teale (who’d had a good game once he’d stopped getting sucked inside) and Fallon replaced MacLean for the last ten. Burnley had shot their bolt - three points were in the bag.

52 points. Safe from relegation. Before the end of February. Do we - can we - should we - dare to dream beyond it?