Son goal denies us a much deserved point
Last night we turned in our best performance of the season so far but when the final whistle blew at the end of our home game against Tottenham Hotspur we’d been beaten for the fourth time in our opening five Premier League games and remain in 18th place with just the one point gained at West Brom last week.
This was the first real tough one on the fixture list, the first of the supposed top six and a team managed by Jose Mourinho who have done a bit of spending since we last met in the last game before the Premier League was shut down.
Burnley’s revolving door right now is the right-back position. With Phil Bardsley having tested positive for COVID and with Erik Pieters injured it was with some relief that Matt Lowton was fit again and was able to come straight back in for his first Premier League action since we beat Watford in late June.
Otherwise it was an unchanged Burnley team from the one that drew at West Brom coming face to face against the Harry Kane/Son Heung-min partnership with the figure of Gareth Bale hovering from the subs bench.
In a reasonably even sort of start to the game it was Spurs who might have gone in front when Nick Pope did a bit of Gareth Southgate style playing out from the back and gave the ball away. Son didn’t make the most of it but quite how poor Lowton had a free kick given against him only Michael Oliver will know.
But it was Burnley who stepped things up as the first half progressed. Ashley Barnes netted but was rightly flagged offside and Hugo Lloris had to save from both Ashley Westwood and Jόhann Berg Guðmundsson while Pope didn’t have one save to make. JBG then came so close to setting up Chris Wood with a ball into the box from the right and there is no doubt that Spurs went in for the break pretty relieved to remain level.
Nothing much changed in the early part of the second half. We had a couple of half chances, they got a couple of blocks in and Josh Brownhill pulled an effort wide. As the half progressed I wasn’t over concerned, they hadn’t had a single shot on target and they weren’t putting us under any pressure.
From that they went down and won a corner on the right. Kane headed on the flag kick and it found Son who headed home what proved to be the only goal of the game.
Unfortunately, we weren’t really able to get back at them too much and it is probably fair to say they defended their lead with some comfort, but they left the Turf Moor pitch knowing just how fortunate they’d been to secure a win, they’d have been relieved with a point I would think.
One point from four games was not the sort of start we wanted to the season, one point from five points has made things a little worse or has it? In some ways yes, but there really are signs of improving form. It was much better last week at West Brom and this was better still despite the result.
Having said all that, as well as we played, we can’t continue to play well and lose 1-0. We are going to have to start picking up some points soon to get us away from the bottom of the table. But I firmly believe, even with the smaller squad this season, we are more than good enough to pull away from the bottom of the table.
The teams were;
Burnley: Nick Pope, Matt Lowton, Kevin Long, James Tarkowski, Charlie Taylor, Jόhann Berg Guðmundsson (Jay Rodriguez 84), Josh Brownhill, Ashley Westwood, Dwight McNeil, Ashley Barnes (Matěj Vydra 89), Chris Wood. Subs not used: Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Jimmy Dunne, Dale Stephens, Josh Benson, Robbie Brady.
Yellow Cards: Josh Brownhill, Kevin Long.
Tottenham: Hugo Lloris, Matt Doherty, Toby Alderweireld, Eric Dier, Ben Davies, Moussa Sissoko, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, Lucas Moura (Erik Lamela 57), Tanguy Ndombele (Giovani Lo Celso 79), Son Heung-min (Joe Rodon 90+3), Harry Kane. Subs not used: Joe Hart, Carlos Vinicius, Sergio Reguilόn, Gareth Bale.
Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland).
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