I wish I hadn’t watched Burnley vs Southampton - The Square Ball 21/4/22

COME BACK SEAN

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

I could tolerate our involvement at the bottom of the Premier League for as long as it only meant doing a thing I like doing anyway: watching my faves Leeds United play football games. But now it’s April and there aren’t many games left, perversely I have to watch more games, most of which I really do not want to watch. So Thursday night I watched Burnley vs Southampton.

Did my noble sacrifice not deserve reward? Southampton apparently thought not. They let Connor Roberts take the lead early, and Burnley could have added approximately 100 goals in the first half if only their striker Wout Weghorst was better and Southampton’s goalie Fraser Forster was worse. Or didn’t need a new contract, which amounts to the same thing. Instead at half-time it was only 2-0, Nathan Collins heading in a corner just before the break.

The second half was even harder to watch, a 45 minute death march as Southampton were kicked out of the changing rooms early but never went more than vaguely through the motions, as if they’d once seen a game of football on a TV on the far side of a big room but couldn’t really remember how it went. Che Adams came on and nearly scored twice, dithering on the second chance until Charlie Taylor tackled him, but after all if he was that good we’d have signed him that time instead of Jean-Kevin Augustin. It ended 2-0 and everyone in Burnley was smiling, upsetting to dentists and annoying to me.

Ralph Hasenhuttl and his bunnymen are doing it again: having an adequate campaign until they’re safe in the Premier League, then putting their feet up and taking the rest of the season off. Since the end of February they’d lost four (including 6-0 to Chelsea) and drawn one (with us), and although they beat Arsenal last time out, the optimism we should take from that is that maybe we can join in the fun and beat Arsenal too.

Given his team’s beach tendency without anything to play for, and with a point in his pocket from Elland Road, couldn’t Hasenhuttl have done his old Red Bull pal Jesse Marsch a favour? Perhaps they’re not as close as we thought. Sure, they left the pitch arm in arm after that draw, but this was Jesse on Ralph before the game: “Ralph is an incredible human being … He is a gentleman … He is a really good piano player.” And this was Ralph on Jesse: “We know each other.”

Okay so Hasenhuttl did also say Marsch is an “outstanding character” when dealing with players but I’m certain this so-called bromance goes only one way and Southampton’s preference for letting Burnley take eleven shots on goal in the first half confirms it. Or, if he does like Marsch, are we the problem? Back in 2017/18, Jean-Kevin Augustin scored twelve goals for Hasenhuttl in Leipzig. Is this part of the payback?

None of this was in the plan. Maybe Southampton don’t care about us, but how could Burnley do this to Sean Dyche? Marcelo Bielsa was at Leeds less than half the time he was at Burnley and some of us may never get over his sacking. Turf Moor, less than a week after he was booted out o’ t’mill? Rocking. Never been happier. Couple of Under-23s coaches in charge with Ben Mee and it’s like the sun has come out, although of course, this being Burnley, it has not. You’ve seen the image above this blog still includes Dyche. That’s because we care more about him than Burnley fans do, we even let him be a guest on our podcast this week. It’s absolutely not because we already had this image from before and didn’t want to pay to license a photo of Ben fucking Mee. It’s about our respect for a managerial great, already forgotten in the town that claimed to love him like a sibling.

Deep breath, then, and repeat the mantra of 16th place: ‘Burnley are chasing Everton and it will be funny if they catch them, Burnley are chasing Everton and it will be funny if they catch them, Burnley are chasing Everton and it will be funny if they catch them.’ Everton didn’t help us much either this week, stealing a late 1-1 draw from Leicester, but at least we and Burnley are now on the same number of games (the Toffees, like their manager’s self awareness, are still lagging behind). Burnley have 28 points, Everton have 29, and the mighty Leeds United are rising far above the fray with a formidable total of 33. Just like Jean-Kevin Augustin — who for the benefit of the Court of Arbitration for Sport I have never heard of, did not see in or around Leeds in 2020, and definitely never watched doing a medical in the dark for a social media video reveal — none of this bottom of the league stuff has anything at all to do with us. I am planning to ruin my Sunday with Burnley vs Wolves and Liverpool vs Everton for entirely non-relegation related reasons that I wish to keep private at this time.