The Countdown begins on Carlisle’s Premiership career

What a week for Clarke Carlisle, the Burnley centre back widely acknowledged as football’s ‘brainiest player’. After a clear demonstration of his intellectual prowess on Channel 4, he offered us a clear demonstration of his ineptitudes as a Premier League centre back on Saturday.

Burnley’s defeat to Portsmouth has made their fight against relegation all the more difficult. Their 2-1 defeat at Turf Moor was almost solely the result of some desperately poor defending by Carlisle. Portsmouth’s first came about as a result of his lack of awareness, as he allowed Frederic Piquionne to pounce upon a deflected shot at the back post for a simple tap-in. Their second, too, came from a penalty conceded by the hapless Carlisle.

A simple defensive throw-in to the keeper was intercepted by Carlisle. What followed was comical. Instead of hammering the ball out in acknowledgement of his error of judgement Carlisle tried to show the trickery of a Maradona to play his way out of trouble. Needless to say, this didn’t go according to plan. He was easily disposed by the two advancing Pompey attackers leaving Carlisle to haul down John Utaka.

There was the earlier penalty conceded by Carlisle too, when he recklessly slid through his earlier foe Piquionne. Brian Jensen spared his blushes on that occasion.

Burnley have been facing an uphill struggle to avoid the drop all season and would have fancied three points at home to the Premier League’s bottom club. If Brian Law’s men are to recover, they will need sharper thinking than that provided by Carlisle. Whilst he may be comfortable with conundrums and coming up with nine letter words, he hasn’t appeared comfortable with Premiership attacks all season long.

Miles Reucroft