And that, my MBM pals, is your lot. Paul Wilson’s report is here. Click and enjoy ... and thanks for reading this live blog. Nighty night!
Sean Dyche looks on the bright side. “There were good signs. Tonight yet again we fell foul to a soft set piece by our standards, but I’m not going to overegg that when we played so well. A lot of our performance was right, especially against a quality side. Our shape was good, the belief in the shape. We made good blocks and stopped their tempo, mixed it up in attack and had more chances than we normally do against a side like this. We had one cleared off the line and some other moments. A lot of what we are trying to achieve was on show, even if we got nothing for it. The performances over a season is what I’ve been talking about. The team looked fit and strong and we have important players coming back. The signs are right. We know if we play like that over a season we win games and get points on the board.”
Jose Mourinho delivers a couple of textbook back-handed compliments. “That was exactly what I was expecting. I know Sean and the difficulties he can bring to the best attacking teams. He is very clever. He plays with what he has, and gave us a very difficult match. So congratulations to him and to his boys. I also thought Michael Oliver and his assistants were very good, and for a match of this nature you need a good referee with stability. He was that man. He doesn’t need to give a red card to Barnes, because that would have been a different game. My players didn’t play the quality football that we want, but because of Burnley not because of us. This is the kind of match that if you take too many risks you can lose it.”
Paul Wilson was at Turf Moor to witness that tonight. His report has landed, and here it is. Managers still to come, should all go to plan.
A word with a very cheerful Harry Kane. “It was an unusual assist, a flick-on to the back post, and Sonny was there to put it away! It’s one of those, when things are going your way they fall to the right people, and Sonny’s on fine form at the moment. I’ve been dropping a little bit deeper and it allows me to get my head up and play passes through. Maybe in recent years we haven’t been doing that. We’re going with the flow. Tough game tonight, but we’re delighted.”
Sean Dyche strides onto the pitch to give Michael Oliver the what-for. Still not happy about the drop ball right at the end of added time. But that didn’t cost them the game. Harry Kane cleared James Tarkowski’s header off the line, then set up Son Heung-min at the other end. It’s a thin line between success and failure in the Premier League sometimes. Spurs move into fifth on 11 points, behind Everton, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Leicester, while Burnley remain in 18th with just a single point, just like Fulham and Sheffield United, albeit with a better goal difference and a game in hand.
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FULL TIME: Burnley 0-1 Tottenham Hotspur
But Spurs claim all three! It wasn’t a classic display, to say the least, but one moment of quality from Kane and Son, who are now creating goals in industrial quantity, decided the match.
90 min +3: The ball hits the referee, who is obliged to stop the game. Burnley are collectively furious, with time running out. Plenty of frustration on display by the home side, who will feel they deserved a point on balance.
90 min +2: The goalscorer Son makes way for Spurs debutant Joe Rodon.
90 min +1: Spurs are four added minutes away from moving into fifth place. Actually, three now.
90 min: McNeil stays down after Lamela goes in studs up. For a second, Lamela had both feet in the air, out of control, but recovered his poise just in time, and just before contact. It’s a sore one for McNeil, but not a serious one, and he’s soon back up and about again. Not sure why Lamela risked censure by going in like that, but there it is.
88 min: The last throw of the Burnley dice: Matej Vydra comes on for Barnes.
86 min: Take two, as Rodriguez wins another corner down the right. McNeil goes longer ... but still gives it too much height, allowing Lloris to pluck from the sky again. On the touchline, Sean Dyche exhales long, slow and hard through his nose, staring straight ahead without blinking. McNeil may be receiving some beneficial words of advice after the match.
85 min: Rodriguez’s first act is to earn Burnley a corner down the right. McNeil wafts it in, allowing Lloris to make an easy claim.
84 min: Burnley throw on an extra attacker, as Jay Rodriguez replaces Gudmundsson.
83 min: Spurs by contrast have been energised. Lo Celso and Son combine cutely down the inside-left, the former eventually shovelling a cross towards Lamela, coming in from the other flank. Lamela whips a low shot straight at Pope, who gathers.
82 min: Burnley haven’t reacted at all to falling behind. A very poor response.
80 min: Long is booked for leaving a little something on Son. From the resulting free kick, Lo Celso sends a soft header into the arms of Pope. Son’s header, though. Such a good reaction to dive onto Kane’s flick-on and fire Spurs ahead.
79 min: Spurs make a second change, sending on Lo Celso for Ndombele.
78 min: That’s the 29th time Kane and Son have combined, one way or another, to score a Premier League goal. There’s only been one more productive partnership since football was invented in 1992: Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard, who created 36 goals together for Chelsea.
GOAL! Burnley 0-1 Tottenham Hotspur (Son 76)
A corner for Spurs on the right. Kane meets it on the penalty spot, flicking on towards Son, who powers a header into the roof of the net from close range! That all happened in a flash!
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74 min: Here, this match has suddenly sparked into life, you know! Ndombele carves Burnley in two with a pass down the inside-right channel for Son, who is free in the box! But he uncharacteristically hesitates, allowing Long to get back and block his shot sensationally.
73 min: Wood, way out near the left touchline, fizzes an ambitious low shot straight at Lloris. Spurs go up the other end, Lamela swinging in from the right. Davies gets ahead of Gudmundsson at the far post, but can’t connect. In going over, he claims a penalty, but he’s quite correctly not getting one.
71 min: SOME EXCITEMENT! A corner for Burnley out on the left. Westwood swings it long. Tarkowski rises highest, guiding a fine header across Lloris and towards the top left. It’s going in, but Kane has read the danger well, and drops back to head off the line! Fine play all round.
70 min: Dier tries to hook a long ball clear. He slaps it straight into Wood, who goes haring off down the centre. He’s clear on goal, but the whistle goes, the ball having hit the striker’s arm. Dier got away with one there.
68 min: Wood tries something acrobatic, hoping to connect with Westwood’s right-wing cross. Full marks for ambition, if nothing else.
67 min: Kane earns a corner off Lowton with a baroque ramble down the left. Burnley clear once again without fuss.
65 min: Kane curls into the Burnley box from the left. Dier hopes to clatter a header goalwards but Tarkowski gets in the road and concedes a corner. Burnley clear it with remarkable ease. Pope still hasn’t had any serious questions asked of him.
63 min: Mourinho channels the Sky Sports viewership by sitting in the dugout motionless, hands in pockets, a face on.
61 min: I suspect Mark Williams isn’t the only Sky Sports viewer wishing his life away right now. Nothing is happening here.
59 min: Both defensive systems are very much on top. “Nobody seems to enjoy watching professional association football on a Monday night,” begins Mark Williams. “Worse still, nobody seems to enjoy playing professional association football on a Monday night. Roll on the weekend!”
57 min: The first change of the evening. It’s by Spurs ... and it’s not Gareth Bale. On comes Erik Lamela, replacing a disappointed Lucas Moura.
56 min: ... Tarkowski heads a good chance over from six yards. He was facing the wrong way. Perhaps if he had one of Justin Kavanagh’s disruptive manbuns (7 min), that would have caromed into the net. I’ll level with you, I’m grasping at straws.
55 min: Wood knocks a long ball down for Barnes, who has a dig from the edge of the D. Alderweireld hangs out a leg to deflect over the bar. Corner. From which ...
54 min: Nothing is happening. If anything, this is even worse than the first half. Plenty of time still for everyone to redeem themselves. “Are Tottenham really just an upmarket West Ham?” wonders Gary Naylor. “They seem to go from the Glory Glory Game to the Borey Borey Game from week to week.”
52 min: Barnes slides into a 50-50 with Hojbjerg, who yells and crumples into a heap. Barnes clearly considers this a fraudulent grift, and performs the internationally recognised mime for GET UP while frowning, effing and jeffing. We play on.
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50 min: Davies gives away possession with a lax ball in from the left, behind the intended recipient Sissoko. Brownhill strides towards the Spurs box and zips a shot inches wide of the left-hand post. Lloris had it covered.
49 min: Spurs ping it around in the sterile style.
47 min: Ndombele tries to release Son on goal, but his creamed pass down the left channel is well cleared by Long’s telescopic leg.
Spurs get the second half underway. According to the statisticians at Sky Sports, Spurs played 33 long balls in that first half. Do you wonder what Danny Blanchflower would say? You’ve got a fair idea, haven’t you.
Half-time reading.
HALF TIME: Burnley 0-0 Tottenham Hotspur
Let’s accentuate the positives: two shots on target, and at least this didn’t cost £14.95.
45 min +2: As does the second. Sean Dyche looks happier than Jose Mourinho at the minute.
45 min +1: The first of three extra minutes, a legacy of the assault on Alderweireld, goes by without incident.
45 min: Spurs try to break. Burnley steal the ball back. Gudmundsson has another go, and hoicks it wildly into the stand. Burnley’s press is beginning to cause Spurs problems; the visitors have coughed up possession on quite a few occasions now.
44 min: Dier tries to spring Moura clear down the middle with a monster pass. It flies straight through to Pope. Spurs are light on ideas right now. Burnley go up the other end, Gudmundsson cutting in from the right and whistling a low shot towards the bottom right. Lloris smothers, as he should. That’s two efforts on target now!
42 min: Kane tries to burst through the Burnley back line by one-twoing crisply with Sissoko. But Tarkowski stands firm. Kane runs into him and yelps in pain before tumbling to the floor. He’s not getting a penalty, or much sympathy either. Eventually he gets up and gets on with it.
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40 min: Gudmundsson robs Hojberg and makes off down the right. He loops to the far post for Wood. Too far forward, too strong. Goal kick ... but this is better from Burnley, who are beginning to cause Spurs a couple of problems.
38 min: Taylor garrinchas his way past Doherty down the left. A lovely drop of the shoulder and a twinkle of the toes. His cross is only half cleared, and Westwood is permitted a shot from distance. He sends a daisycutter towards the bottom left. Lloris claims the first on-target effort by either side.
36 min: Brownhill takes the set piece himself. He’s looking to curl over the wall and into the top left, but gets right under it, the ball sailing high over the bar and deep into the stand. Like Pope down the other end, Lloris still hasn’t had any serious work to do.
35 min: Moura clumsily, and rather pointlessly, clatters into the back of Brownhill, just to the left of the Spurs D. A free kick for the hosts in a very dangerous position.
34 min: Ndombele cuts in from the left and blooters a shot straight into Long’s startled coupon.
33 min: “This is turgid stuff,” writes Stephen Carr. “The readings on my ‘Percentage Football-o-Meter’ are off the scale.” Count yourself lucky. The needle’s sheared clean off ours, and is currently coptering through the air towards Blackburn.
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31 min: Kane drops back with a view to playmaking, but there’s no space for him to operate in. Burnley have regained composure and shape at the back, after a few minutes of being pulled this way and yon.
29 min: Spurs continue to dominate the game. They’ve been the better side, though they’ve yet to seriously warm Pope’s hands. A reasonably major caveat, to be fair.
27 min: A lovely Son soft-shoe shuffle confuses Lowton, sending him off in the wrong direction, and allowing the Spurs striker to send Davies into space down the left. Davies’s cross is too deep and no good. What a lovely little bit of understated, economic skill by Son, though. He’s such a marvellous player to watch.
25 min: Hojbjerg tries to release Kane into the box, but his curler down the right channel is overcooked. Another goal kick. Spurs are beginning to pull Burnley’s back line out of shape.
23 min: The resulting free kick is hoicked straight out for a goal kick. Pope owes Lowton a wee dram or two.
22 min: Pope leaves his area and shanks a dismal clearance straight at Son, 25 yards out on the Spurs left. Pope’s left his goal wide open, but Son takes a heavy first touch, allowing Lowton to come across, get in the way, and eventually concede a garden-variety foul. He’s bailed his keeper out big-time there. Son is livid with himself for passing up the opportunity to return the ball into an empty net.
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20 min: Taylor, deep on the left touchline, loops a glorious ball towards Barnes in the centre. Barnes tears clear of the Spurs back line and slams into the bottom left, a wonderful finish. But he knew he was miles offside. The flag goes up eventually.
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18 min: A nice sweeping move involving Kane, Son, Moura and Davies, tearing upfield from right to left, ends in a corner. Son takes, and curls towards the near post, but there are no Spurs players taking a chance there. Burnley clear.
17 min: Pope takes his sweet time over a goal kick. A little bit earlier, Doherty did some very strange things to the space-time continuum by taking nearly half-an-hour over a throw. As a result of all this hanging about, there’s been little flow to this game so far.
15 min: Wood wins a long ball down the middle, chesting down under pressure from Dier and Sissoko, teeing up Barnes, who slices a 25-yard effort well left of the target. Burnley’s front two are putting themselves about in the unpretentious manner.
14 min: It takes a while to tidy Alderweireld up. Ointment is applied to the wound, which is by his right eye, some dressing is pressed on, and a bandage wrapped right around his noggin. He’s now good to continue.
11 min: Barnes goes up with Alderweireld and cops an elbow in the mush. Now that’s surely a booking, Barnes going into the jump leading with his arm ... and blood’s been drawn. But Michael Oliver’s not interested in handing out anything other than a free kick.
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9 min: Davies scurries down the left after another raking ball, but runs out of road. He’s ushered out of play by Lawton. Spurs are enjoying the lion’s share of possession right now.
7 min: No Premier League start yet for Gareth Bale, of course. Justin Kavanagh thinks he may have worked out why: “Kalvin Philips’ deflected header against Wolves last week got me wondering whether control-freak coaches like Mourinho might ban the man-bun as a back-header accident waiting to happen. Gareth Bale beware! Zidane may have been jealous of your barnet, but this new boss is all about hairline advantages.”
6 min: Ndombele spins smartly in the middle of the park and sprays a long pass down the right for Moura, who reaches the box and shoots low and hard. Pope makes a meal of claiming on the greasy pitch, but completes the task after a fashion.
4 min: A long cross into the Spurs box from the left. Gudmundsson heads back across from the far stick. Wood goes up with Lloris, and is penalised for the resulting clatter. Both sides showing plenty of attacking intent in these early exchanges.
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3 min: Kane chases after a long pass down the right. Long and Tarkowski allow him to bustle into the area and loop a shot over the bar from a tight angle. A bright start by Spurs.
2 min: Brownhill goes into the book after 61 seconds. He’s harshly penalised by Michael Oliver for tugging down Ndombele from behind. That’s some no-nonsense refereeing! Penny for the thoughts of Virgil van Dijk.
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1 min: Lawton aquaplanes off the pitch. He does very well not to disappear head-first into the stand. It’s been raining a lot in Lancashire.
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Burnley get the ball rolling ... but only after the 22 players take a knee. There’s no room for racism. Black lives matter.
The teams are out! Burnley wear their famous claret and blue, while Spurs are in their first-choice lilywhite. A lovely classic aesthetic to tonight’s match. We’ll be off in a minute!
Sean Dyche is equally upbeat, though that doesn’t stop him firing another shot across his board’s bows. “All managers have a challenge, whatever club they’re at. It’s been challenging in some ways, but also very rewarding, not just for me but the staff, the players and the town. So we will work hard to keep that going. I think it is [one of the toughest times]. Since the lockdown there has been a lot of noise off the pitch, a lot of noise about what we can do on the pitch in terms of recruitment and finance. But the players are still working hard, we’ve never been short of the work ethic. We just have to tidy up the details and get back to winning ways. I thought we were getting there against West Brom, and it’s a big ask against a side like Tottenham but we’ve delivered before against them. The performance is the key for me. We have to work well in both boxes. We’re going to have to do that again tonight because they’re a good side.”
Jose Mourinho, in an easy-going mood, speaks to Sky Sports, and reflects on the draw Spurs scrambled at Turf Moor back in March. “That match was the worst period for us. Two days after, we had to play in Leipzig. We did not have attacking players. We lost here our last attacking player, with Bergwijn injured, so that moment was really difficult. Now we have more players, better players, more time to work, a different style of play. But one thing doesn’t change: this stadium here, against Burnley, is always difficult.” He goes on to praise assist-machine Harry Kane as a footballer and not just a goalscorer, while enjoying a good-natured giggle with the interviewer as the Lancastrian rain hammers down on their noggins. Feelgood factor: ten out of ten.
Burnley make one change from the goalless draw at West Brom. Matt Lowton comes in at right-back in place of the injured Erik Pieters.
Spurs make four changes to the XI who went three up against West Ham, let’s accentuate the positives about that one. Matt Doherty, Eric Dier and Ben Davies replace Serge Aurier, Davison Sanchez and Sergio Reguilon in defence, while up front Lucas Moura comes in for Steven Bergwijn.
The teams
Burnley: Pope, Lowton, Long, Tarkowski, Taylor, Gudmundsson, Westwood, Brownhill, McNeil, Barnes, Wood.
Subs: Brady, Peacock-Farrell, Stephens, Rodriguez, Vydra, Dunne, Benson.
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Doherty, Alderweireld, Dier, Davies, Sissoko, Hojbjerg, Lucas Moura, Ndombele, Son, Kane.
Subs: Reguilon, Bale, Lamela, Hart, Rodon, Lo Celso, Vinicius.
Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland).
Preamble
Welcome to the rematch of the 1962 FA Cup final, as all the pop kids are framing it. Burnley were in the box seat to land the league and cup double that year, but misplaced their mojo, allowing Ipswich Town and Spurs to make off with the spoils instead. Can Sean Dyche’s men avenge the 3-1 Wembley defeat of Harry Potts’ side, er, sort of, by notching their first win of the 2020-21 league season? Or will Spurs pile on more misery as they look to bounce back from that collapse against West Ham? We’ll find out soon enough. It’s on!
Kick off: 8pm.
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