Barnes-Wood duo is done
Plus: Cornet-watch
Hi everyone - this week’s lead article comes from friend of the podcast Mike.
As always, please feel free to give any feedback about the newsletter in the comments, or tweet me @jamiesmithsport if you want to contribute something. Let’s crack on…
Barnes-Wood duo is done
I’m still shaking my head at that first-half performance. I had really been looking forward to this game. Everything was set up another memorable slaying of a Big Rich Club: Arsenal, these days less a Premier League powerhouse, more the leader in providing content for red-faced men to scream abuse into a YouTube channel; Burnley, buoyed by decent performances that deserved more points, a big crowd, an exciting new signing on the bench and a new four-year contract for the manager.
And then the game started.
Seven matches into the season and for the first half Burnley looked stale. Tired. Exhausted. Instead of flying out of the blocks, the Clarets looked drained of energy and confidence. Dwight McNeil’s body language on a good day could be described as languid yet, at times on Saturday it veered dangerously, close to lazy. Nick Pope skewed long kicks like a drunk at a dartboard. Ashley Barnes did what Ashley Barnes does: miss a couple of decent chances, fail to pass a ball 10 yards and get himself booked. A little unluckily this time - but that’s not the point. With the overly physical narrative set pre-match and the opposition selling the slightest contact in a way that would bring appreciative applause from professional wrestlers, that yellow card meant his meaningful participation was effectively over.
I’ve seen a lot of criticism for Ashley Westwood conceding the foul that led to the goal. A classic case of damned if you do; it was either that or Bukayo Saka passes to the wide-open player to his right. It came from Pope slicing a goal kick out of play and the goalkeeper compounded it by seeming to be very slow to get across to a shot at a very saveable height.
The turning point was, of course, the early substitutions. Although I feel Sean Dyche hooked the wrong winger, at least the change was to do something new. Matej Vydra might indeed chase down and fail to block an outlet pass but it is an improvement on Barnes simply because Vyds isn’t giving away a stupid free kick in the process.
The appearance of Maxwel Cornet sparked the crowd into life. You could feel everyone welcoming him to the club, willing him to succeed. He showed flashes of potential – not losing the ball when tackled, simple quick passing. Of course, he hasn’t built a connection with his team-mates with passes going astray but he was hardly alone in that.
Burnley got a hold of the game, easily regaining possession in tackles as Arsenal shied out of not only 50-50 balls but 60-40s. The ball was fed out to the wings for dangerous crosses. Finally, they looked threatening. The crowd were up. Mikel Arteta went through the entire Pep Guardiola pitchside moveset to little effect. Where had this side been for the previous hour? And please, please, can we see it again on Saturday?
It was never a penalty, by the way. I sit on the 18-yard line of the Longside Upper and had a perfect view. I was, of course, surprised and delighted when referee Anthony Taylor pointed to the spot but then the sinking feeling hit – VAR is going to overturn this. I knew, all those sat around me knew, it’s never a penalty, if this stands we’ve got away with one. Dyche said afterwards he couldn’t understand why this wasn’t given and Patrick Bamford’s last year was, it’s simple - that award at Leeds was just one decision in a refereeing performance of such catastrophic ineptitude that it’s used as reference material to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
A word about the opposition. It is incredibly impressive how Arsenal have spent £450 million on a team so passive and mediocre. Make no mistake, they are an utterly bang-average side who rely on one of their vast array of lightweight midfielders coming up with something to affect the game. Perhaps I should be more respectful of one of the founders of the European Super League even if they did owe their place to the other 11 clubs needing a whipping boy. Maybe I should admire their blatant gamesmanship by sending a coach to the opposite side of the pitch to give instructions to their full-back. And we must praise their absolute commitment to time-wasting, which because of the high quality of the canapes in their press box becomes “game management”.
None of that changes the fact that Arsenal side were absolutely, totally there for the taking, and for far too long Burnley seemed reluctant to want to put a glove on them.
That’s the thing, really, the root of the frustration. Points are hard enough to come by in the Premier League as it is without failing to make the opposition work for them. I’m not going to be daft enough to say that Burnley deserved all three points, but had they played the first 60 as they played the last 30, they could have had them.
A confident team – one that had got the results they should have in their opening two home games – would have put that Arsenal side to the sword.
Someone needs to stop putting grease on Charlie Taylor’s studs. Dwight needs to be told that once Cornet is up to fitness, he’s got a battle for the right to start. Pope needs to spend a week solely practicing his kicking.
But more than that, things must change. We can’t start Barnes and Chris Wood for the next game, or any game. No more. As a duo, they are done. Barnes has had a year to play himself into some kind of form and that form was never much in the first place.
One of Dyche’s favourite phrases is “fine margins”. But it’s hard enough to stay on the right side of those without shooting ourselves in the foot on a regular basis.
With Norwich, Southampton and Brentford coming up in the next few weeks, October is already looking like a crucial month.
Cornet-watch
As Mike says, the two subs really changed the flow of the game. It was good to see Dyche make some early changes, though they could have even happened at the break.
Cornet made a huge difference. He settled quickly with a few simple passes while he got up to speed and then forced Aaron Ramsdale’s first save of the game with a smart strike. Had he hit it just a little bit higher or wider, it could have been a dream debut.
One of the things I noted is that he seems scrappy. He appears to welcome the contact of defenders, drawing them in before laying the ball off. A couple of times, Cornet was put on the deck but still managed to find a team-mate with a pass. I liked that a lot.
The quality is there too. Jay Rodriguez should have hit the target with a stoppage-time header after Cornet switched to the right flank and found him with a flat, whipped cross. According to Who Scored, that was his only cross - McNeil sent in a whopping 16 but only four of his were “accurate”. Cornet won a couple of free-kicks, which is important as we rely heavily on set pieces, and he made more passes than Barnes too.
There were a couple of moments when Cornet was hanging back when he should have been attacking crosses at the back post and his link-up play was occasionally - and understandably - a touch uncertain. But there is certainly a lot for us to work with.
One of the issues could be getting Cornet and McNeil to link up more. I thought it was an imperfect solution to have Dwight shift flanks, moving our best player - albeit one who had a rare bad day - out of position to accommodate Maxwel. You really want your star players to form partnerships so having McNeil and Cornet with 50 yards of pitch between them is perhaps not ideal. The flip side is we have a genuine threat on both wings if we line up that way. Late on, rather than take off our target man and then pepper the box with crosses, it might have made more sense to give McNeil more of a free role, rather than sticking James Tarkowski up front as an emergency striker.
Cornet did enough to suggest he should start against Leicester on Saturday, anyway. I’d have loved to have seen Dyche’s reaction when he threw in his first stepover too…
Opposition view: Clarets were not outplayed
Gunners fan Dan provides this week’s opposition view:
Arsenal came out in a surprisingly aggressive 4-3-3 with a midfield of Thomas Partey behind Martin Ødegaard and Emile Smith Rowe. The intent was clear: come out, throw caution to the wind and cut through the Burnley defence. Then they registered three shots in the first 29 minutes, conceding just as many.
Ødegaard bailed the Gunners out with a spectacular free kick to give them a 1-0 lead, but never really pushed on from that. They failed to create many chances of note, despite the ostensibly strong attacking team. Burnley are no pushovers defensively but failing to create big chances with that lineup was a disappointment.
Defensively the team was quite solid. Gabriel Magalhaes was imperious at center-back, relishing the physical challenge the Burnley frontline presented. Ben White struggled a bit, including a potentially disastrous back-pass that led to a penalty only to be overturned by VAR. While they gave up 18 shots, none of those were particularly good chances.
In the end, this was an even game that Arsenal happened to win with a moment of quality. That’s football and that’s the advantage of having expensive attackers. However, the Clarets were not outplayed and easily could have come away from this match with at least a point.
On this week's podcasts
Look out for the main show examining the Arsenal game in the next couple of days.
Quiz question
Two questions this week - listen to the next preview show with Dave for the answers:
Who was the last Burnley player to be sent off against Arsenal at Turf Moor?
Prior to Burnley's EFL Cup win over Arsenal in 2008, can you name the Clarets’ goalscorers on the last occasion Burnley beat Arsenal in a home league match?
Birthdays and anniversaries
Last week’s birthdays were wrong because I was looking at the wrong thing. Sorry. These should be right as I’ve checked them about 19 times… and also asked Dave.
Today is the 38th birthday of Jon Walters and Ben Mee is 32 tomorrow. Many happy returns, skipper. Hopefully, we mark it with a lovely cup win. Trevor Steven, one of Burnley’s greatest academy products, celebrates his birthday tomorrow - he will be 58.
#OnThisDay in 2011 and 2005 respectively Burnley beat Milton Keynes and Barnsley in the EFL Cup. Hopefully a good omen for this week’s visit of Rochdale.
Danny Coyne assist!
Tweet of the week
Her Game Too, lads…
Recommended reading etc
Some interesting insight from Steven Defour in how new signings like Cornet will settle in at Burnley in this Athletic article (£ - subscription required).
Letters
This is a really good point. Anyone complaining about the James Tarkowski tackle on Richarlison would have their heads fall clean off if they watched a non-league game.
Comments below with any feedback, or your views, or tweet me @jamiesmithsport.
Thought of the day
Ole, Ole, Ole - or Allez, Allez, Allez?