View From The Dolan: Two On The Bounce

Ben’s thoughts on a comfortable but flawed win over Burton on a cold, wet autumn night at the SCL.

Truth be told, I wasn’t up for the game. At all. It’s been raining for like a month, it’s Halloween (nearly), it’s cold and all I wanted to do was eat a massive pipe of Pringles while sulking on the sofa. The game also had all the hallmarks of a massive melon skin, with The Brewers still searching for a +3 this season.

However grim things felt, I dragged myself to go. I left the house in an orderly fashion, but realised I hadn’t kissed at least one cat goodbye. As I walked past the living room, I took another final glance at the sofa and bid my farewells to the inanimate objects that I know would have given me solace on this damp winter’s evening.

Having battled the puddles, the partially flooded roads, the temporary roadworks literally everywhere, the traffic and my own desire to turn around and go home, I arrived at the Whitley Bowl to news of young Andre Garcia starting on the left side in place of Kelvin Abrefa. I wasn’t really sure of the reason for this but wasn’t hugely against it. Other than that, it was as you were from the win at the weekend.

We started OK, with the key difference between the teams being that we were able to retain and recycle the ball reasonably well. Chem Campbell looked a bit brighter, which was typical given that I’d said 24 hours earlier that he maybe, possibly shouldn’t have been in the team.

Some good work from Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan down the left-hand side resulted in a pass-cross that wasn’t dealt with by the Brewers and Campbell himself was there to pounce. Should the goalie have done better? Yes, yes he should, but I doubt anyone in blue and white cared.

20 minutes later and the lead was doubled. A nice through ball from Amadou Mbengue was met by their left-back who faffed around like a Tesco customer standing in the yellow-sticker aisle pondering the purchase of some reduced meat. Campbell was again on hand to make himself known and fired in number two of the night.

The half was completed with Mbengue taking a wild strike at goal that completely missed the target and ending temporarily killing one of the LCD advertising boards.

For anyone who hasn’t attended a game recently, let me tell you that half-time is a soulless experience currently. Music choice, overall vibe and the weather led me to guess in my head how many people had listened to me about the hot dogs by purchasing one and then bringing it back up to their seat. I’d guessed four but only two people did what I thought they’d do. Not bad I guess.

The second period was a prime example of how we weren’t totally at the races. Some good individual bits were cancelled out by the overall link-up play between the areas on the pitch.

The midfield were trying to move the ball forward, only for it to be wasted further up the pitch. Clever runs off the ball were met by players losing it in possession. We should have got at least another two with Sam Smith and Ehibhatiomhan guilty of being wasteful, while a dipping Michael Craig shot (which almost looked like a block tackle) landed on the roof of the net.

Burton were not good and we should have made them pay for it goal-wise. Ball retention again was good but the overall feel of the second period, before Smith converted a well-struck corner, was that we did enough given the opposition we had in front of us.

Burton scored a late consolation through some pretty lazy defending by us, Garcia getting caught on the overload and the centre-backs failing to mark the lad in the middle. And this is my point I guess: there were little spells in the game when we just stopped and failed to apply pressure to them when they had the ball. However, a win is a win and two home triumphs in two days is the most we could ask for.

This sets up for a trip up to Rotherham United (yuk) and, honestly, who knows what happens there? As I’ve said previously, keep winning the home games and the rest of the season will take care of itself.

The game against Burton shows that: we didn’t set the world on fire but were able to do what we needed to get the points and never once looked like we were in danger of messing it up.

Thanks for reading as always. Look after yourself and see you soon.

Until next time.