| Match report
In the circumstances, a point
taken from Turf Moor against Burnley, who dominated the first half,
was earned by a much improved second half performance which could
have seen Spurs walk away with all three. Spurs on a bad run
of no wins in four and Burnley unbeaten and keeping clean sheets,
the omens didn't look good ... but that is that part of Lancashire
for you.
Tottenham almost opened the
scoring inside 40 seconds, as the ball was worked through to Erik
Lamela, who poked a pass to Stephen Bergwijn on the edge of the box.
He shanked his shot, but the ball ran just behind Dele who was near
the penalty spot, but he flicked it behind him to Lamela, who had
continued his run. Unfortunately, again, the ball was behind the
Spurs man and it was cleared by the Burnley defence. Their first
effort came in the sixth minute, as Tanganga’s clearance was
played back in for Alderweireld to head out, only for Wood to fire
it back instantly with venom and the ball whizzed over Lloris’ bar,
but not by much. A couple of minutes later, a corner from their left
was taken by the wind to the far post, where Mee’s header hit the
post and a goalmouth scramble was blocked a few times by spurs
defenders, before it was booted clear.
Burnley were targeting Tanganga’s side where he had little cover in
front of him to stop Taylor and McNeil working that line. When
Japhet was caught diving in on Rodriguez, McNeil got free with
Sanchez in front of him and his cross hit the Spurs defender,
bounced back at him and onto his arm. From his second cross, it was
cleared out to the edge of the box by Dier but Rodriguez had
recovered and fired in a low shot that Hugo got behind in the middle
of the goal, but failed to hold, spilling it in front of Wood, who
slipped it past him to put Burnley one up with 12 minutes gone. The
goal stood despite the handball, because it wasn’t involved in the
assist to the goal, which came from the second phase of play. I
thought a handball was a handball, but there you go !
The offensive chanting from
the classy home crowd died away as they celebrated their goal and it
wasn’t undeserved as they had been pumping crosses into the box as
Spurs struggled with a back three and five in midfield in front of
them. They were allowing McNeil to find space and his runs at the
defenders were causing problems. As Tottenham tried to play out from
the back, there were few options available as the movement to make
space to receive passes was missing.
Lloris made a very good diving save and catch away to his left to
hold McNeil’s free kick from 25 yards and Spurs smuggled the ball
away when Wood won it against Dier, who let the long high through
ball bounce in the swirling wind. Eventually, Spurs had a shot at
goal on 29 minutes, when the ball was won by Lamela, who went on to
shoot, but Pope took it at head height, although Vertonghen was in
space to Erik’s left. Westwood had the chance for a volley inside
the D on the edge of the box but hit it wide of the mark.
Tottenham were getting into positions on the edge of the box but
were reluctant to shoot or more willing to pass the ball on,
allowing Burnley to get men in the way to prevent any danger. There
was a headed chance for Rodriguez that was blocked by Vertonghen’s
hands, but they were not away from his body nor raised and the ball
lopped up for Bardsley to attempt a scissors kick that flew way over
the bar.
The first half had seen Spurs be too open and not urgent enough to
cause too many problems for the other side, but they needed to get
people moving off the ball to stretch Burnley and to allow the
player on the ball to have someone to want it. Mourinho decided that
the pairing of Ndombele and Skipp wasn’t working, so changed
personnel and system. Giovani Lo Celso and Lucas Moura came on to
try and make something of the majority of the possession they had.
Changing to a flat back four, with Dier moving up alongside Lo
Celso, Spurs looked more comfortable. Immediately, you could see
that there was a better opportunity to break on Burnley, but the
wind was causing problems at the back and after he failed to let the
ball go out giving Wood the chance to put the ball into the box, he
left a bouncing ball to hook the ball away from the same player.
Three minutes into the half, Lo Celso took the ball off Rodriguez
and ran forward from ten yards inside his own half. Having a couple
of options, he played the ball to his right for Lamela to run onto
and as he got to the edge of the box, Mee slid in thinking Erik was
going to come inside, but he let the ball run across him and the
Burnley defender caught his trailing foot to concede a penalty.
After Wednesday’s penalties fiasco, it wasn’t with great confidence
that Dele stepped up to take the spot-kick. However, he confidently
stroked the ball into the opposite side of the goal as Pope dived to
his right.
1-1 and all to play for with 40 minutes left.
There was now the urgency that Tottenham had been missing, with some
more closing down to put pressure on what now seemed a nervous
Burnley side that was resorting to snide fouls to stop the forward
momentum that we had got going. Five minutes after the Spurs
penalty, Burnley wanted one when Sanchez challenged Wood and he went
down. Sanchez went for the ball, while Wood tried to turn him in the
air and the referee was not interested, even having to go to explain
to the Burnley striker why when he had been fouled a minute later by
Sanchez that got him a yellow card, as a flurry came out of Moss’
pocket, mostly to home players that caused a huge outrage amongst
their ever so knowledgeable fans.
Toby fired a shot from outside the box over the bar from a cleared
corner, as Burnley were dropping deeper, but the crosses in from
wide positions were not really hurting the home side. Lamela and
Dier exchanged passes inside the Burnley area, but the ball just ran
away at the vital moment. Dele than remonstrated with Lamela for not
shooting when he tried to play Moura in, but he had been blocked off
in the area by Mee. Dele had been guilty of prevaricating on the
ball when a shot might have been a better option in the first half
of the match. Spurs were breaking on Burnley and Hendrick, who had
already flicked a heel into Alderweireld’s midriff and Lo Celso’s
knee, tried to trip him with a naughty flick of his boot, but wasn’t
good enough even to do that. Toby was soon in action in defence,
with McNeil playing the ball through to substitute Vydra in the box
and he cut back inside the Belgian to open up a shooting
opportunity, only for Eric Dier to slide in for an important
challenge to stop what could have been a clear shot for the striker.
From the corner, Lloris got a hand to the ball among a crowd of
players and Tottenham switched the ball upfield through a 50 yard Lo
Celso run, ending with Dele shooting wide when it had seemed a good
position.
Hendrick finally got booked for a crude lunge as Bergwijn beat him
and the opposite situation happened about two minutes later,
but Bergwijn’s tackle was not half as bad. Aurier came on for Lamela
and slipped into a wide right-hand side position to attempt to get
the ball into the box. Lucas broke up a move in the centre circle
and ran the ball up to the 25 yard mark, before slipping it to
Vertonghen on his left and the drilled shot was blocked by Mee.
Vydra knocked a ball down to Wood 25 yards out at the other end to
shoot, but it lacked power and was straight at Lloris, who held the
ball well. With ten minutes left, Aurier and Lucas linked well on
the right, with Moura pulling the ball back to Lo Celso 20 yards
out, who curled a shot to the far post that missed by a foot with
Pope no hope of reaching it. Two minutes after that, Sanchez headed
away a cross, but only to McNeil on the left. His low cross-shot
that was going well wide got caught under Toby’s feet and Vydra was
onto it. The defender managed to recover his bearings to get the
bottom of his boot to the effort and Lloris reacted sharply to his
left to keep the ball out by pushing it wide. Dele had a good chance
when Tanganga freed Aurier on the right and his low pull back came
to the Spurs midfielder 12 yards out, but the ball rippled the
outside of the side-netting, having been deflected by Tarkowski.
Lo Celso twice gave the ball away in the last minute, with Dele
having to turn a cross off for a corner off his chest, which the
home crowd saw as a handball. From it, Mee won the header to Wood at
the far post, but his shot from six yards out was blocked by Dier
and the ball went out, but there was no time for a corner to be
taken, as the final whistle went.
A point was probably the right result, with each team having the
better of one half. Tottenham’s performance was so much better in
the second half, with Dele finding a new lease of life, with the
team’s passing more accurate and the movement much better causing
Burnley into rash tackles and hurried passes that turned over the
ball.
Dyche had his usual hard done by speech at the end of the match,
claiming they should have had a penalty when Sanchez bumped into the
back of Wood in the box and it would have been given anywhere else
on the pitch. It seems that the poor old fellow is suffering from
short=term memory loss, as the same incident happened by the corner
flag at the Spurs end, with no free-kick given to Burnley, just a
goal-kick to Spurs. He also inferred that the referee’s performance
was influenced by being spoken to by the Spurs management at
half-time, but he seemed to fail to remember that he and his staff
spent much of the game in the fourth official’s ear, waving his arms
about like a scarecrow in the wind to pressurise the officials. It
is a tactic he very often employs and for all his talk about
demanding that his players don’t dive but being “clever” has been
going on forever, most things he says contradict something else that
has come out of his mouth. He moans every decision against his team
and the ball-boys only return the ball to Burnley players. It looks
as though they are turning into the new Wimbledon.
Hopefully, there were no
more injuries picked up in this physical encounter, although Lloris
got up gingerly from one save and Lucas was limping after Cork took
his boot off with some studs down his ankle. The team probably
fly out to Germany on Monday to meet RB Leipzig the following day,
when I hope that Coronavirus is the only major threat to our
continued presence in the Champions League !
Burton
Bradstock |
