Watford 0 Burnley 3 (23/11/2019)

1- It’s odd.  Everyone has bad times, I guess.  Everyone has difficult spells, when things get overwhelming.  In such periods, when life’s challenges lurch out of nothing, football is put into perspective.  Quite how little it matters in the grand scheme of things.

And perversely, it suddenly matters more than ever.  It mattered today.

2- It mattered in the more fundamental sense too, of course. The win at Norwich was huge fun and so needed but here’s where we were to get a steer on whether a corner had truly been turned.

And we started well enough.  With Troy still on the bench we couldn’t compete with the visitors’ physicality and so we didn’t try to.  This has been an issue a number of times over the past six months or so when Troy has been missing and we’ve looked far less potent than we did today in such circumstances.  We didn’t create a load of chances – this disciplined, aggressive Burnley side isn’t going to make life easy for anyone –  but criticisms of our inability to convert are slightly unfair here.  That we’re struggling for goals is no secret, but here we worked chances and got behind the Clarets.  Deulofeu was everywhere, simultaneously the man most likely to craft something through artistry and the man most likely to get onto a loose ball and scuttle off in a beeline goalwards.  This he did to open up our best chance as Doucouré did his best to keep out of the way, Pope saving with his feet.  Earlier, Dawson had dropped a header narrowly over from a set piece.  Some snappy passing resulted in an underwhelming finish from a dynamic Capoue.  No, it wasn’t a rout and we didn’t score but we were comfortably on top and there were few in the home stands who weren’t positive as we approached the break.

That the Clarets themselves had offered so little owed a fair bit to the defending and courage of Craig Dawson.  His role at the centre of the three involves getting his head to things;  this he did, despite the not inconsiderable threats of Chris Wood and Ashley Barnes.  Much more confident and convincing since we moved to a back three, Dawson bossed the back line here until the second of two head injuries – possibly a broken nose given the amount of blood – forced him off.

Immediately obvious that we were in trouble. On came Masina who wasn’t quite a square peg in a round hole, left of the three you kinda feel he could do.  But we were deprived in terms of make-up of that back three, no big brute to win the headers like Dawson, or Prödl, all the more vital against this opponent.  Centre back was the area that most transparently needed strengthening more than it was over the summer and that was before we switched to three at the back – five men covering three spaces doesn’t leave you a lot of wriggle room.  Let alone when you have players off injured before the break in six consecutive games, limiting flexibility as well as manpower.  For the record – Welbeck at Spurs, Cleverley vs Bournemouth, Quina at Everton, Cathcart vs Chelsea, Pereyra at Norwich and now Dawson.  Quique could be forgiven for thinking the fates were against him.

3- As for Burnley, a win here would take them up into the top six.  In reality they are in the ever-churning mid-table morass that encompasses most of the division and which we gaze up at nostalgically.  They are as likely to finish fifteenth as sixth, but will be absolutely fine anyway on the basis of this resolute performance.

Their biggest threat would seem to be approaching over the Christmas period when their ginger Widow Twankey on the touchline will surely be called up for East Lancs pantomime duty. At the vanguard of the visitors’ militarised, choreographed game management, Dyche sprung forward with arms outstretched in apparent outrage at every perceived slight against his side be it that delicate flower Ashley Barnes rolling over in anguish at the suggestion of bodily contact, or James Tarkowski being pulled up for yet another hack at Deulofeu.  Burnley were slowing the game down from a minute in, kicking the ball carefully out of reach on rotation to prevent quick free kicks.  Ashley Westwood stood in front of every free kick feigning the alignment of a defensive wall until finally booked in the second half, James Tarkowski took a yellow for cynically chopping down Deulofeu on his way into the area.  It was all designed to generate an edginess to the game that the Clarets, with their defensive discipline, less fragile confidence and steady side (this was after all the same ten outfield players that clubbed their way to a 0-0 here in January) expected to be able to cope with better than we would.  It nearly backfired on them as Gerry had the temerity to go down softly in the face of yet another clump and the collective Clarets’ composure wobbled visibly, players losing their collective rag, but only briefly.

“Antifootball! Antifootball!” cheered the away fans with what presumably passes for irony in Burnley.  In reality there’s nothing wrong at all with the way Burnley play – defensively disciplined, robust and direct in attack with enough quality to make it all work.  Great fun to support a team with that work ethic, enjoyable to watch them upset other teams playing that way.  But the cheap, indoctrinated gamesmanship (including the whining about refereeing decisions and how dishonest everyone else is that marred Dyche’s time here also) is very crap indeed.  Few tears will be shed when it’s Burnley’s turn for a season to go against them.

4- The lack of a dominant centre-back was quickly significant.  The second of successive corners saw Tarkowski nod back for Chris Wood to hook the opener with the visitors’ first shot of the game.  Foster appeared to be blocked off on both corners but certainly the second one was his own fault, blocked off by his own player;  there was a nervousness, perhaps in part emanating from the keeper, perhaps a collective awareness of our vulnerability, that hadn’t been there before. The air went out of our performance almost instantaneously.

On came Troy for his much awaited return, and then Ismaïla Sarr.  Dawson’s injury had perhaps increased the urgency for Deeney to be introduced; he’s arguably our most reliable defender from set piece situations in any case.  Unfortunately he looked far too far short of fitness and mobility to live up to our hopes, but he’ll get there.  Sarr meanwhile looked mobile and frightening but simultaneously slight, too easy to bully, and not quite sure where his place was in the whole thing.  With the ball at his feet and running though he’s a threat, the more so when attacking empty spaces behind an opponent forced to come forward one suspects.  More to come, but not today.

The second goal, the penalty, summed up our season in so many ways.  A loose ball in the box, Ashley Barnes so much more mobile and alert than Jose Holebas who swung a boot at where the ball had been and caught the player instead.  It wasn’t a deliberate foul but it was careless and clumsy.  The ball progressed upfield to what would have been a corner only for VAR to call it back.  Paul Tierney’s performance was flimsy in the face of so much contempt from the visitors, but no cause for criticism here.  Ashley Barnes put the spot kick to Ben Foster’s right,  the keeper got both hands to it but could only force it against the inside of the post and in.  Our best efforts insufficient, again.  A third followed, Foster saving well from Tarkowski only for the centre half to knock in the rebound unchallenged.  The most pathetic goal of the three, underlining the answer to the “have we turned the corner or not?” question.

5- Jose Holebas ended the game by dumping Phil Bardsley onto his backside; difficult not to sympathise, Bardsley is typical of the gnarled old boot that filled up Burnley’s bench and squad and had been studiously understudying his manager’s pathetic routine throughout. That Holebas somehow avoided a booking made it the more enjoyable, but precious little to show from a miserable afternoon.

Difficult to be positive after this.  Quique has done a job in making us more solid, but today demonstrated the limits of that in the face of injury and misfortune. Whatever Burnley’s obstructiveness we remain far less than the sum of our parts as an attacking threat.  And whilst 3-0 is a slightly perverse scoreline not reflecting the balance of play, it’s impossible to avoid the fact that, as with the games under Javi earlier in the season we played kind of OK and got stuffed anyway.  That’s not a healthy place to be.

Yoorns.

Foster 2, Femenía 3, Holebas 2, Cathcart 3, Dawson 4, Mariappa 3, Doucouré 2, Capoue 3, Hughes 3, *Deulofeu 4*, Gray 2
Subs: Masina (for Dawson, 45) 3, Deeney (for Gray, 57) 2, Sarr (for Hughes, 67) 3, Foulquier, Dele-Bashiru, Chalobah, Gomes