Burnley v Arsenal - Player Ratings

[TVC15]

If Brady and Hendrick are a 6 for that performance then I am clearly watching a completely different game than you Bobinho.

I know the ratings are by definition about opinions but I just don't get what you think you have seen on the pitch today.

[HiroshimaClaret]

A

[IanMcL]

Pope 7
Lowton 7
Tarkowski 7
Mee 8
Ward 7
Gudmundsson 9
Defour 7
Cork 7
Brady 8
Hendrick 7
Barnes 8

Fantastic Clarets.

[ClaretTony]

I thought Hendrick was excellent, pushing JBG for MoM.

I really don’t know what Hendrick has to do to impress some people. Having watched the highlights on Sky it confirmed for me just how good he was today.

[HiroshimaClaret]

Not “someone”. Me. Almost invisible. As I asked, did he touch the ball? I know it’s a team game, and everyone has their job, but I struggled to see jeffs worth today. No link between him and Barnes, and defensively absent. Maybe 5 was harsh, but I want a little more from him. He stood out as weak to me. Difficult to criticise after that performance, but I’m not wearing my claret specs, and I’m not a of the opinion that we should be delighted just because we are “little old plucky Burnley” and given the arse a run for their money.

All about opinions though, and if you thought he was a 9, fair enough. As long as you think he WAS an nine, and you’ve not just got carried away with an excellent all round team performance.

I agree wholeheartedly regards Hendrick. Thought he went AWOL far too often. For me, he `throws one in` every 3 or 4 games but does have the knack (even in those games) of scoring a goal. He wouldn`t be at Burnley if he didn`t have his AWOL moments! I thought Cork being given unique problems by Arsenal`s movement also dampened down our midfield at times, as well as Defour who wasn`t his mercurial self. When all is said though, still a very unlucky loss of a point and another night to be proud of the mighty Clarets.

[claretspice]

Quick question for those marking Hendrick down to ponder, and perhaps answer: when Wood came on after 75 minutes, he could have replaced any of the 3 central midfielders to allow us to go 4-4-2 ( in fact, if anything it would have made more sense to bring off Hendrick as the closest like for like swap, as he did at Southampton).

So why did Dyche choose to take Defour off and keep Hendrick on, if Hendrick was going AWOL/not involved? Could it be that to the manager's eye (and to his staff), it appeared that Hendrick was having the more influential game?

[Hipper]

Perhaps because he is the weakest fitness wise and we have a game on Wednesday.

[CrosspoolClarets]

Probably because Defour was on a booking. Fairly common to take the man off in those circumstances.

I agree about Hendrick though.

[claretspice]

Probably because Defour was on a booking. Fairly common to take the man off in those circumstances.

I agree about Hendrick though.

Not common for Dyche though. He generally trusts his players to manage being on a booking (remember Arfield against Everton at home last season, for example), provided that they are playing well.

Perhaps because he is the weakest fitness wise and we have a game on Wednesday.

Hasn't done that all season, because Dyche believes in Defour's fitness. Its also another entirely un-Dyche like thing to do - the whole one game at a time mantra.

He took Defour off because he wasn't playing as well as Hendrick. It is as simple as that. Perhaps Defour was less effective because he was on a yellow so was weaker defensively, but that doesn't alter the point. He came off because Hendrick was playing better, in the manager's opinion.

[cricketfieldclarets]

Think he kept hendrick on as he is the most physically dominant cm we have. And hoped to have enough to see out any set pieces arsenal may have late on. Also defour was on a yellow and hadnt had his best game. He was still bloody good. But in the circumstances, removing defour was logical as it meant hendrick could afford to tackle a bit more than defour.

[Blackrod]

I'd agree that Hendrick has more physicality but he is not suited to the role he is playing in a 4-1-1 and this is the area where we need to recruit imo.

[bobinho]

Ultimately, only SD knows his reasoning behind taking D4 off and leaving Jeff on, and as it turns out, it was a decision that didn’t cost us the game.

We will never know of course whether the decision cost us the win.

It’s all about opinions I suppose. I thought Jeff was by far the weakest of our players on the day, as did many others. Some scored him a 9/10. Ok. One person scored him 9/10.

He’s been very good for us recently, and I’m delighted with him, now I’ve got over his transfer fee. Today may just have been down to him being not as good as the arsenal midfielders, but he was fairly ineffective and disappeared for long periods. Maybe I’m expecting too much, but I can’t score a player on what he’s capable of at times. He got scored on his performance against arsenal.

[HiroshimaClaret]

Quick question for those marking Hendrick down to ponder, and perhaps answer: when Wood came on after 75 minutes, he could have replaced any of the 3 central midfielders to allow us to go 4-4-2 ( in fact, if anything it would have made more sense to bring off Hendrick as the closest like for like swap, as he did at Southampton).

So why did Dyche choose to take Defour off and keep Hendrick on, if Hendrick was going AWOL/not involved? Could it be that to the manager's eye (and to his staff), it appeared that Hendrick was having the more influential game?

For me, Defour wasn`t affecting the game as he usually does, Cork was always going to stay on and as I stated, Hendrick DOES have that knack for grabbing a goal even when he isn`t having the best of games.

[ClaretTony]

Think people are being really harsh on Hendrick. Thought he was comfortable with the ball and made some brilliant passes.

His passing of the ball has been a major feature this season and was so evident yesterday.

[Hbclaret007]

Our best performance of the season - deserved a point at the very least.
Let's bounce back at Bournemouth

Pope 7 - very little to do - unlucky with the penalty
Lowton 8 - solid and better today going forward
Tarkowski 8 - great performance - he did get the wrong side of Ramsey, but he threw himself to the floor - contact yes - foul no
Mee 8 - assured as usual
Ward 8 - back on it today - after a couple of slightly below par performances
Gudmundsson 9 - Excellent - always a threat - so unlucky with the first half effort
Defour 8 - another quality performance - how was he booked for dissent when it was a clear corner?? When Arsenal contested every decision which went against them (very few thanks Mason)
Cork 8 - Worked so hard picking up the second ball - kept us ticking the whole game
Brady 8 - best performance I've seen by Brady - just think a right footed player may be better taking free kicks from the left
Hendrick 7 - good from Jeff with quick passing and breaking up play - i thought he faded a bit in the second half
Barnes 7 - worked very hard and even managed to get Mason to give him an odd free kick

A difficult defeat to take - I hope not to see Mr Mason again for a long time - Arsenal continually cheat or play the modern way - will we have to sink to their level to get anything from a game like yesterday? I hope not.. UTC

[BleedingClaret]

Pope - 8
Lowton - 8
Tarks - 8
Mee - 8
Ward - 9
JBG - 9 Mom
Cork - 9
Defour - 9
Brady - 9
Hendrick -8
Barnes - 9

[strayclaret]

Pope 7
Lowton 8
Tarkowski 7
Mee 8
Ward 8
Gudmundsson 9
Defour 8
Cork 8
Brady 8
Hendrick 7
Barnes 8

[Colburn_Claret]

Re Hendrick, I like the man a lot, but as others have said he isn't suited to the role he is being asked to play. Ash won some good balls on Sunday, but Hendrick was either too close to him to collect it clean or took too many touches to bring it down. Now I'm not trying to knock the lad, but people who have marked him down are doing so on what they witnessed.
I thought Cork was well below his usual self, acknowledging the fact he doesn't play against Arsenal every week, but he ran himself into a hole on more than one occasion when it was easier to play out, or get rid.
The team as a whole put in an excellent performance, probably our best by a long way. If Brady and JBG could play like that consistently then Europe could be a realistic target, which would be an unbelievable achievement.
So much to be positive about.

[Dublin7Claret]

Pope - 8
Lowton - 8
Tarks - 9
Mee - 9
Ward - 8
JBG - 9 MOM
Cork - 8
Defour - 8
Brady - 9
Hendrick -9
Barnes - 8

[Claretsi]

Pope 7
Lowton 8
Mee 8
Tarkowski 7
Ward 7
Brady 8
Detour 8
Hendrick 7
Cork 7
Gudmundson 9
Barnes 7

[claretspice]

Re Hendrick, I like the man a lot, but as others have said he isn't suited to the role he is being asked to play. Ash won some good balls on Sunday, but Hendrick was either too close to him to collect it clean or took too many touches to bring it down. Now I'm not trying to knock the lad, but people who have marked him down are doing so on what they witnessed.

You see, I think the first thing you say in your post Colburn is a view a lot of people hold, and I've expressed it myself. But I think this assumption he isn't suited to the role is making people hyper-critical of him. Apart from anything else, it also implies that role hasn't changed, but I think he - and the team - are beginning to interpret this new set up better. At times yesterday we had JBG dropping into the pocket off Barnes, sometimes Brady. Often Hendrick was much deeper, deeper than Defour and even occasionally Cork - there was a real rotation to our midfield that wasn't there earlier in the season (perhaps playing against a side who were more willing to attack us helped in that respect). I saw Hendrick pop in wide positions far more, too.

In other words, the role Hendrick played yesterday was different, or was at least interpreted by him and the team differently, to the one he played against, say, Huddersfield at home.

As for balls Barnes won - you may be right that Hendrick didn't connect with many of them, but he's got to gamble on where the ball will land and make the right run, and often when we went long to Barnes it was because we were under the cosh so Arsenal had 3-4 defenders to deal with Barnes plus Hendrick trying to connect with him. Hardly a surprise that he didn't make more of those balls (even if you might be right that Arfield, say, anticipates a flick on better than Hendrick).

But as we seem to be evolving more towards a fluid 4-1-4-1 model, from the 4-4-1-1 model we adopted earlier in the season, that's a bit less of an issue to me. His performance as a third central midfielder yesterday seemed to me to be very good, irrespective of how it might have been on those relatively rare occasions when he found himself closer to a second striker.

[Marple Claret]

Pope 7
Lowton 8
Ward 8
Mee 8
Tarkowski 8
Defour 8
Cork 8
Hendrick 8
Gudmundsson 9*
Brady 8
Barnes 8