Time to panic?
Plus: The McNeil problem
Well, the good news is last week’s title was right. Nathan Collins did play against Newcastle! Let’s try to take a positive from what was a shocking day for Burnley.
Time to panic?
Another positive to start with: even though Saturday could not have gone a lot worse, Burnley are only three points adrift of Watford in 17th and we have a game in hand.
The Clarets are not cut off, with a lot of mid-table teams still anxiously looking over their shoulders. Crystal Palace might look relatively comfortable in 13th right now but the Eagles are only six points above the relegation zone and could well get sucked in.
What the weekend’s result does mean is the bottom three have bunched up and are all now joint-bottom or joint-18th, depending on how full/empty your glass is. A lot of people had written Norwich City off as being already relegated a few weeks ago, but it only takes a couple of good results to turn things around and bring in some new hope.
That said, however, it is difficult not to panic a bit after losing to a team that had not won a game in any competition all season. It is possible to argue that most folk maybe expected Newcastle to spend their way out of trouble anyway. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t really make me feel any better after sitting through Saturday’s game.
Burnley were appalling. There is no making excuses for it. Yes, Maxwel Cornet went off injured after we had made a fairly bright start. And yes, we had a goal ruled out for a narrow (yet correct) offside call after our one piece of quality football and yes, we did eventually muster a few decent chances and some late pressure on Newcastle’s goal.
We can also argue about the goal and whether it should have stood but Nick Pope will know deep down that he made a bad mistake and he should have punched that ball.
The quality of balls up to Chris Wood was diabolical until the last 10 minutes or so.
According to WhoScored’s data, Burnley managed just three accurate crosses. For a team that usually poses their main threat from good crosses, that is extremely poor.
Some of our pass completion rates were embarrassing. Burnley are direct so usually they will not usually push anywhere near about 90%, which is elite. But Charlie Taylor (62.2%), Matt Lowton (65.5%) and Josh Brownhill (70.3%) in particular will be watching the tape of that game back through their fingers. Not even close to being good enough.
Lowton and Brownhill are both on borrowed time with Connor Roberts and Jack Cork ready to step in. Cork had played well at Wolves and he was arguably unfortunate to be the man to drop out of the midfield to bring back Ashley Westwood from his ban.
The number of times Joelinton or Allan Saint-Maximin or basically anyone in a black and white shirt simply ran through the area of the pitch where a midfield usually operates, completely unchallenged, indicates the huge problem Burnley have in there.
While Sean Dyche has been (too?) patient with Roberts so far, he was bought to be an upgrade on Lowton. It is surely now time to see if the Wales international is or not.
There is only so long you can stick with players who are part of a team with one win.
The McNeil problem
So should we think about leaving out Dwight McNeil? On Saturday there were a couple of his trademark whipped balls into the box, but he produced little else of note.
Miguel Almiron’s defensive workrate denied McNeil time. He only started to find any space once Eddie Howe had substituted the Paraguay midfielder late in the game.
McNeil is yet to score in the Premier League this season and has managed one assist.
It looks to me like McNeil would benefit from a rest, or being dropped, whichever way you want to spin it. But the reality is there is nobody else to take that spot on the left.
Cornet seems likely to miss at least a couple of games with his latest injury, leaving Aaron Lennon - a 34-year-old Aaron Lennon! - as the only other winger in the squad.
We are back to a situation where we are a knock or two away from Erik Pieters lining up wide again, which just shows how much more investment is needed in our squad.
A lot of people seem to have decided that Johann Gudmundsson is the problem with Burnley’s attack. I would like to see more from JBG too and there is no doubt playing him on the right wing slows down some attacks as he always wants to come inside.
But on Saturday JBG hit the post and set up Matej Vydra for an excellent chance. He could have had a goal and an assist by half-time on another day very easily. All season, Gudmundsson has been no worse than McNeil. The defensive work JBG does also cannot be underestimated. He made seven tackles on Saturday, more than anyone else on the pitch, even though he did not play the full match. JBG is not our main problem.
McNeil might be. A huge issue this season has been Burnley’s key players not meeting their usual standards. Pope has made too many errors. Both regular centre-backs have had a number of bad games each. Wood has had a typically slow start to the season.
With Cornet out, McNeil will be back to being our star player. It is time to step up.
Podcasts and quiz questions
Recording of the next main analysis podcast is tomorrow, so look out for that.
And ahead of Sunday’s game against West Ham there will be a preview podcast out as well, featuring answers to these quiz questions:
So far, only four Burnley players have failed to convert penalties (one each) in competitive matches, since Dyche became manager, but can you name all four?
...and just for fun, can you also tell us how many consecutive penalties Burnley have scored in all competitions since the last time we missed one?
Opposition view
Thanks to Newcastle fan Scott from The Online Rule for his view:
The match at the weekend was the third time in the past two years that I’ve had the pleasure of watching Newcastle vs Burnley at St James’ Park. Across 300 minutes of football (thanks to extra time in the League Cup) there has been one goal. And I even managed to miss that by popping to the toilet.
From our perspective, the game was an improvement. It’s hard for it to have been worse than what we’ve seen over the past few years. But there was also relief that Burnley didn’t spot our weak points sooner. Wood is one of the league’s best in the air, but it was only in the last 10 minutes that his teammates seemed to realise he had the beating of our defenders every single time the ball was off the ground. If his strengths had been played to sooner it might have been a different result.
It was definitely a game between two teams at the same end of the table, but I feel like Burnley had the better chances. Certainly more shots on target, and our goal only came from a mistake and then a half-chance. Thankfully Callum Wilson tips the odds in our favour from those kinds of opportunities more often than not. Losing Cornet in the first half helped too.
For me, Burnley need to accept what their strengths are - namely Wood - and not be scared to play to them. In those last 10 minutes there were a few times we held our breath as he won another knock down and the ball bounced in the box before it was blasted over. Thankfully the clock ran out (we did help it on its way with some time wasting) before one was able to be converted.
Birthdays and anniversaries
A curious #OnThisDay this week. Two of our last three games on December 6 have been against Sheffield United - and we won them both by the same 3-2 scoreline.
Chris Wood is the week’s main birthday. Our big striker will be 30 on Tuesday.
Tweet of the week
Letters
Mark wrote in with some views on the 0-0 draw with Wolves in midweek:
I thought Nathan Collins and Charlie Taylor were are best players against Wolves, both defended really well with important tackles. My girlfriend thought the same but she thought Charlie just pushed it that bit extra - he is her favourite Burnley player. Am disappointed we didn't score when that lovely ball from Cornet found Jay Rodriguez in space, he should have buried that one.
Collins was really good again, fully agree. He made one mistake against Newcastle - letting Wilson bump him too easily and then having to take a yellow to bring him down - but that was just probably a touch of lacking experience. He looks very solid.
That’s it for this week - as always, feel free to write in with any views/feedback. Ta!