Steve's Sunday Summary - Week 4

What a week to reflect on. A story of Dickensian proportions you might say.

It all began with "Great Expectations" with the visit of Liverpool on Tuesday evening. Another balmy evening with shirt sleeves (yellow of course) the order of the day.

To be honest, any fanciful thoughts of an upset were receding once the teams became known. Five changes for the Brewers with Bywater, McCrory, Butcher, Choudhury and Williamson called into action.The visitors also called on the bench and the recently injured to introduce Matip, Origi, Mane and Emre Can. Oh oh.

And so it proved. Different Class. Magnificent to see a full XI of international talent and once the second went in it became something of a master class.

No complaints from me.Highlight was the use of Palmer, Harness and Fox as second half substitutes. They are THREE of our own! Long may that continue.

Hard to raise a gripe of the week but I will take issue with the provision of match day magazines (or programmes as we used to call them when I was I lad!)

I was through the North Stand turnstiles at 6:45, 15 minutes after they were opened, and already sold out! What is going on? It had been well publicised that all home tickets were sold. big clue as to how many to print I would have thought. What a lost opportunity for the club to make a few quid. Thankfully, a supervisor managed to locate a further 30 copies so I was able to grab my souvenir but I am sure that many after me had to go without.

To put the defeat into some sort of context, I saw a very similar Liverpool XI (Just Coutinho for Origi, I think) do a very similar job on Tottenham for an hour on Saturday lunchtime. Quite how Spurs got away with a point will remain a mystery that may haunt the reds when the final positions are decided next May.

The game at White Hart Lane saw the the briefest and most bizarre "Brewers on the box" moment when Kevin Stewart got another outing, 3 minutes and 15 seconds into 3 minutes of added time! If I could change one rule at the moment it would be no subs after the fourth official has indicated the extra time to be added. Usually takes 45 seconds to a minute for a sub to enter and this is rarely added on!.

We had a double helping in the second televised EFL Cup game with Billy Kee starting for Accrington against Burnley, and Romuald Boco, a loanee in the Peschisilodo era, joining in as a late sub.

And for the really sad of us that switched over during half time in the Tottenham v Liverpool game, you would have see Shaun Harrad as a half time sub for Wrexham at Dagenham and Redbridge. Already 3-0 down, Shaun got in a good header within minutes of the re-start but was unable to repeat his get out of jail antics at the Don Valley Stadium where he got all 3 Brewers goals when we wiped out a similar deficit against the then homeless Rotherham.

But back to Friday, which began with news of outs (Butcher to Millwall) and ins (Miller from Tottenham, with our second Dickensian reference point with his childhood portrayal of Oliver Twist on good old Auntie Beeb)

The mood continued into the evening with the visitation of the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future all rolling into one!

Past? 25/08/2008. Brewers 2 Kidderminster Harriers 2. Brewers scorers Pearson and Brayford! Welcome back John.

Present? Loving the headline in the Mail that managed to work in Jackson and Thriller! Good Work, Ash.

Future? Too soon to get carried away, but five games in, two wins, a draw at former Premier League Champions and two of the narrowest defeats, either of which could quite easily have been victories with just a little more luck.

And to round off the Dickensian analogies, the uplifting denouement of "A Christmas Carol" in which the frail and vulnerable Tiny Tim has the last word finds its echo in the injury time introduction of Shaun Barker who in true "Roy of the Rovers" style gets his head on to the Rams final corner to banish the fear of a last gasp, and let's be honest, undeserved equaliser.

If the Sheffield Wednesday game was our best ever, this was surely the most surreal. Heroes again, from 1 to........36.

"God bless them, every one"