Football has contributed more idioms to the language than any sport, bar possibly cricket, and with our Kazakh superstar returning to the Burnley side following recuperation from an injury, perhaps it is time to combine the good news with a series of turns (of phrase) that even Johan Cruyff would be proud of.
To get the ball rolling, even armchair fans know that Dastan Satpayev joined the Lancashire club after parent club, Chelsea FC, sent the player out on a season-long loan.
After kicking off in some style, Satpayev picked up a knock in a match and had to return to London to the treatment room, while his new club struggled to turn domination into points. Opponents snatched wins against the run of play, despite the Clarets putting a shift in against sides that just parked the bus as they swept forward in droves.
Coach, Nicky Hayen, kept his eye on the ball and held firm in his resolve, believing that the side would turn it around and get stuck in, although the injury to the new Kazakh man of the match led the 12th man in the stands to feel that their team had been robbed of the engine of the side.
Refusing to take their foot off the gas, the revamped Burnley team took to the pitch yesterday hoping to arrest the slide away to a Watford side also desperate to climb the table. The Hornets, and their owners with some of the deepest pockets in the Championship, came unstuck against the basement team who had been up against it all season.
The return of Dastan Satpayev is seen as a game changer and a catalyst for Burnley to kick on and battle for promotion, but the Kazakh talent watched most of the game from the sidelines, warming the bench yet raring to go, as his team finally found their touch and took Watford to the cleaner’s.
Although, literally speaking, this match was a game of two halves, the story is very much that of one-way traffic, as it was a drubbing, and Nicky Hayen knows the score; he knows that he has the cream of Championship talent at his disposal and at this stage of the game, it’s plain that not moving the goalposts could pay off and that perhaps the team won’t need added time to get into a rhythm.
Some believe that Watford bottled the clash and played with too much caution from box to box. They too have hopes of surging up the table and into the Premier League but were a shambles yesterday, at sixes and sevens all over the park, which allowed Burnley to capitalise.
Although Satpayev didn’t get on the pitch early doors, nor until the closing stages, his return to the thick of action is just what the doctor ordered for the passionate fans of a team that dreads falling foul of consecutive relegations, and are desperate for the side to get as far away from the trap door as soon as possible.
Once mathematically safe, Dastan Satpayev and the Clarets will be able to play flowing football and set the whole division alight. Either that or face the hairdryer from their clever manager, Nicky Hayen, who, despite the win yesterday, will have his back to the wall and may lose the dressing room (unless the doors are clearly labelled).
