In my 45 years watching the Clarets these 2 words never go together - taking away the 2 Arsenal games has that changed slightly this season?

I think we've probably had more than our fair share of luck this season.
Possibly more so at home than away. There's been 3 or more games at home that had we not won,
but lost or drawn then we really couldn't have claimed to have been robbed.

We've been fairly fortunate with injuries so far and haven't lost too many (apart from Marney)
for the duration although Defour has been out for some time and looks to be
unlikely to complete a full match.

Our back 5 have virtually been ever present which has helped us enormously, I believe.

Yes we had some bad luck too in some games but overall I feel we had more than our fair share.

I was thinking about this earlier and I tend to agree. Maybe not so much that we've been lucky, rather that we haven't had much bad luck.
Even the two outrages against Arsenal have been cancelled out points wise by Vokes ' winner against Leicester.
I don't have the stats here, but I suspect our woodwork has been hit more than we've hit the opposition's. No real problems with suspensions or lots of injuries all at once either. Just bits and pieces that over a season make a big difference.

JBG out too.

Compared to last time we've had a lot of stuff go in our favour, regarding injuries, other results etc.

Last time when Marney got injured we had no cover and it all went downhill, whereas this time we've got more then enough cover and we've held it together.

Results - We've been very fortunate that there are other teams more determined to get relegated then we are.

I think we've played really poorly only 4 times this season - away at Chelsea, West Bromwich, Stoke and Leicester. There have been quite a few games where I felt we were unlucky and against good opposition - Arsenal twice, Tottenham away, and Liverpool away spring to mind. And then the occasions when some superb opponent pulls off something special, like Agureo for Man City.

An unlucky Burnley doesn't have Heaton in goal at Old Trafford and loses a good 6 or 7 nil.

Gudmundsson's shot goes over against Everton, game ends 2-2.

Barnes slips v Palace, 2-2.

Vokes' handball spotted against Leicester, 0-0.

That's 7 points there, and if we didn't have those we're a bit precarious...

Then Keane gets a red for taking out Bamford, missing key games.

And it's all very very scary...

jurek wrote:Our back 5 have virtually been ever present which has helped us enormously, I believe.

Touch wood! Touch F*****g wood!!

With injuries to Marney, Defour and JBG, and Hendrik's red card, our biggest slice of luck was surely Barton's issues at Rangers paving the way for his return.

There's a small element of "the more I do to weight the odds in my favour, the luckier I get" to slightly misquote Gary Player.

I think we've had some moments of fortune this season for sure, but we've earned a lot of that luck ourselves by having good players or having enough talent to deal with injuries, etc. when they've arisen.

The Arsenal games aren't the only moments of misfortune - for example, Spurs' winner at White Hart Lane was created by Sissoko, about a minute after he should clearly have been sent off for an awful tackle on Steven Ward. And whilst we were well beaten at Southampton in the end, we should clearly have had a first half penalty for a clear foul on JBG at 0-0. There have been other examples of this too.

The harder they work, the luckier they get.

Anyone also think that Sean Dyche reminding everyone for 3 years how saintly our squad is has got into the minds on the referees?

lizardlad wrote:In my 45 years watching the Clarets these 2 words never go together - taking away the 2 Arsenal games has that changed slightly this season?

Great post.

Liverpool at home and away at Man United instantly spring to mind, absolutely battered by both of them and came away with four points.

I'm not buying that we've even been remotely lucky this season.

How many penalties have we not been awarded at key moments in games? Swansea at home, Southampton away and City at home we're all nil nil when we clearly should have had penalties. I'm not suggesting we would have won these games but the games would have changed had we scored.

How many match winning goals shouldn't have been allowed? Arsenal x 2 and Llorente away at Swansea are three that spring to mind immediately.

Then there's the Sissoko red card at White Hart Lane to argue about.

Yes we had the Vokes goal versus Leicester and a disallowed goal from Afobe which should have been given, but other than that there's no blatant decisions gone in our favour.

All in all we've probably been denied 5 or 6 points but gained 3 or 4. So, if anything, I'd say we've been slightly unlucky!!

Diesel wrote:Great post.

Liverpool at home and away at Man United instantly spring to mind, absolutely battered by both of them and came away with four points.

This is rubbish. Liverpool certainly didn't batter us at Burnley, in fact Heaton didn't actually make a save of note.

There was a lot of guff talked about the game at Old Trafford too. Certainly Heaton made one world class save and a couple of other very good saves, but apart from those and one late chance that Zlatan spooned wide, most of United's shots on goal were from range of through crowds of bodies. It wasn't quite the robbery it was painted as being (which doesn't mean it wasn't a game we'd have lost 4 times out of 5).

I tend to agree we've not been that lucky, nor unlucky, this season. We've generally got an even break (so far) and done fine with it.

...what about Lincoln's 'goal' that didn't cross the line?

Robbed Burnley might be a more apt thread. Dodgy refs especially v Arsenal have cost us points.Blatant penalties refused most recent v Boro.
No we deserve all we've earned by pure graft.

Hull at home. While we conceded late on, from what I rememember Hull were much the better side and deserved all 3 points.

claretspice wrote:This is rubbish. Liverpool certainly didn't batter us at Burnley, in fact Heaton didn't actually make a save of note.

There was a lot of guff talked about the game at Old Trafford too. Certainly Heaton made one world class save and a couple of other very good saves, but apart from those and one late chance that Zlatan spooned wide, most of United's shots on goal were from range of through crowds of bodies. It wasn't quite the robbery it was painted as being (which doesn't mean it wasn't a game we'd have lost 4 times out of 5).

I tend to agree we've not been that lucky, nor unlucky, this season. We've generally got an even break (so far) and done fine with it.

Just a shame we couldn't have made more of the sendings off - Man U, Man City & Arsenal.

Diesel wrote:...what about Lincoln's 'goal' that didn't cross the line?

the technology said it did

I'm not sure about luck as such, but it's a good season to be back in the PL, only about 8 sides are any good.

I think the only luck in football relates to refereeing decisions. If Heaton makes a string of brilliant saves, that's not luck. It's just one of our players having a really good game.

claretspice wrote:This is rubbish. Liverpool certainly didn't batter us at Burnley, in fact Heaton didn't actually make a save of note.

There was a lot of guff talked about the game at Old Trafford too. Certainly Heaton made one world class save and a couple of other very good saves, but apart from those and one late chance that Zlatan spooned wide, most of United's shots on goal were from range of through crowds of bodies. It wasn't quite the robbery it was painted as being (which doesn't mean it wasn't a game we'd have lost 4 times out of 5).

I tend to agree we've not been that lucky, nor unlucky, this season. We've generally got an even break (so far) and done fine with it.

How do you spell balderdash?

One thing that Sean Dyche's Burnley does is stay in the game. We rarely go into the last 10 minutes of the game more than 1 goal down. As such we give ourselves a chance of snatching something. As for luck, I'd say it's been fairly even for and against.