It’s a fantastic way to bring up 250 games
Burnley beat Everton 2-1 this afternoon at Turf Moor, coming back from a goal behind to take all three points, and visiting manager Sam Allardyce was rueing his side’s missed chances during the first half that, if taken, he felt would have seen his side take all three points.
“It’s frustrating to create as many chances as we did in the first half, which has been one of our problems, and not capitalise on it,” the Everton boss said. “That’s had a massive impact on the result today.
“We’re left extremely disappointed by the fact that we’ve ended up losing the game when we’ve put ourselves in the position to win it, not only by scoring the first goal but also the amount of chances we created in the first half after that.
“I think we overrode that pressure to a certain degree and started to find out way back into the game but didn’t produce anything like the quality we did in the first half, apart from Gylfi manufacturing an opening for himself which we would’ve normally scored. He didn’t, and then we decide not to deal with a corner correctly and allow a free header for Wood to pop it in and inflict a very disappointing defeat.”
Allardyce added: “Ashley Williams then gets himself sent off, so what started to be looking like quite a bright afternoon ended up very disappointed indeed. It’s an away defeat we certainly could have avoided and had we done better in the first half in front of goal we’d have won it, I believe.”
In game 250 in charge of the Clarets, Sean Dyche was finally able to once again speak after his side had won a game. “It’s a fantastic way to bring up 250 games,” he said. “We’ve turned a game around to win for the first time in the Premier League with a winning performance, and I thought it was a winning performance.
“A number of things worked well for us today. The way the lads performed was key, but the lack of disappointment in going one goal down was evident. Everyone stayed calm, including the crowd, which is an important thing. We’re on a tough run, we’ve never denied that and that gives the players the freedom to go and play and in the second half, in particular, I thought we were tremendous. To turn a game around in that fashion was very pleasing and very deserving, I must say.”
Cenk Tosan has scored his first goal in English football to give Everton a half time lead and Dyche said: “It was a head scratcher to go a goal down at half time, but we used that. I said to the players that because we hadn’t come from behind to win, nobody expected us to, and to go and play with a freedom because what’s the worst that can happen?
I took Jeff off, purely for tactical reasons to get two up top, and it worked. I was pleased with that decision because sometimes you can wait, but sometimes you feel things need affecting and Woody’s performance as a whole was good, along with the others.
“The only thing I’ve ever said is to give everything and even on a tough run it’s a great feeling as a manager when you know you are going to get players who give everything. It’s very rare we go below that mark and now, if you add in belief and moments of quality, there’s more of a freedom to go and show people what we can do.”
He ended by commenting on the ball Matt Lowton played through for Ashley Barnes to score the equaliser. He said: “That pass from Matt in the second half was top, top drawer. To find that gap was one thing, but then the weight makes it one of the best passes I’ve seen in a long time.
“Now we have 40 points and I want us to take on the remaining part of the season with that touch more freedom, because that psychology of having that total on the board is a good marker.”
Follow UpTheClarets:Share this page :