Full-time: Burnley 1-1 Wolves
Wolves looked to be closing in on the top four when Jimenez blasted them into the lead with a superb goal. But a late penalty by Wood following a handball given against Doherty proved just how tough Burnley are to beat. The draw isn’t great for either side: Wolves are three points below Leicester and Manchester United, while Burnley are four points behind seventh-place Spurs. “We fight to the end,” says Wood.
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GOAL! Burnley 1-1 Wolves (Wood pen 90+5)
Patricio dives the right way but Wood guides an emphatic penalty into the top corner. Burnley’s European dream is still alive, just about, and Wolves stutter will spark jubilation in Manchester United, Leicester and Chelsea!
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Penalty to Burnley!
It’s for handball by Doherty, who raised his arm to protect his face as Wood wound up an overhead kick! VAR is going to study this ...
90+3 min: Burnley hoist in a looping cross from the right. Patricio wanders out of his goal to try to collect it but he’s nowhere near it! Vydra nods it back across the face of goal to Wood, who dives to head it into the net from three yards .... but somehow he steers it wide! What a miss!
90+1 min: Coady pulls down Wood, giving Burnley a chance to lamp a freekick into the box from wide the right, about 30 yards out. Westwood delivers. but Boly heads it away.
90 min: Traoré - who has been outstanding again today - cuts through midfield and then plays in Neto. The Portuguese low shot across the goal from 16 yards is saved by Pope.
88 min: Wolves frustrate Burnley by with lots of triangular passing. They look to be in charge of this. They’re going to move within one point of the top four!
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86 min: Moutinho releases Traoré with a sneaky quick freekick. Pope rushes off his line to clear before the winger can collect.
84 min: Burnley substitution: Brady on, Brownhill off.
83 min: Wolves substitutions: Dendoncker and Jonny on, Jimenez and Jonny on.
81 min: Wolves are playing with a swagger now. Burnley’s attack has been reduced to throwing haymakers in the form of aimless long balls.
79 min: Burnley bang a long freekick into the Wolves box. No one can get on the end of it, so it bounces out for a goalkick.
GOAL! Burnley 0-1 Wolves (Jimenez 76)
WHAT A GOAL! That was stupendous! Traoré started it brilliantly by collecting the ball deep in his own half, then turning and tearing forward. He fed Doherty, who tries a pot shot from 25 yards. That ricocheted off a defender and dropped to Jimenez, who showed balletic technique to get his foot over the ball and then enflamed a volley into the net from 18 yards! That didn’t just break the deadlock, it blew it to bits!
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73 min: Not so much a lull as a slump. Play has been bogged down around midfield for the last few minutes.
70 min: Vinagre twists and tuns past Gudmundsson down the left, then sticks an inviting cross up to the back post. Can Doherty score with his first touch?! Maybe, but he’ll have to wait because Tarkowski wins this header.
69 min: Wolves substitution: Doherty on, Podence off. On the Burnley side, Long seems to be OK.
67 min: Podence tries to skitter through the middle of the Burnley defence. He’s looking good until Long steps in to dispossesses him. But he catches his studs in the ground as he falls, causing his knee to twist painfully. He needs treatment. Hopefully nothing more serious than that.
66 min: Westwood’s freekick from the right is met by Long, who head down and wide at the back post.
64 min: This is opening up a little. There’s no question of either side settling for a draw.
62 min: A Wolves cross is cleared .... but only as far as Neves, so not really clear at all! Neves takes it on his chest and unloads an elegant volley from 25 yards. He’s scored like that many times before ... but this one is straight at Pope.
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61 min: Jota finds Jimenez at the edge of the area. But Burnley are again very quick to close down the forward, who finds no shooting possibility so he backheels it to ... no one.
59 min: Burnley are looking stronger and stronger. They’re sharper all over the pitch and their well aimed long passes into the box are causing a lot of trouble.
57 min: A critical sliding tackle by Neves denies Brownhill, who had run from deep on to an awkward curling pass into the area!
55 min: Saïss is down hurt after landing heavily on his shoulder after an aerial challenge.
54 min: Jota feeds Jimenez, who dummies his way past Long before cracking off a fierce shot from 20 yards. It whizzes just over.
53 min: It’s a promising spell from Burnley. They’re passing the ball around confidently and then getting in decent early crosses. But Wolves have dealt with them well so far. The latest one was headed clear by Boly, with Wood again lurking.
50 min: Burnley substitution: Vydra on, Rodriguez off.
48 min: A Burnley counter-attack concludes with Bardsley flighted over a good cross to the back post. Wood is lurking, but Traoré tracked all the way back to head clear.
47 min: Super play by Wolves. They zipped forward, then Jota pulled a pass back from the to Neves outside the area. Neves flipped over to Traoré, who killed it beautifully and then fired a thunderous effort across the face of goal. Theres no one there to meet, which might just as well because it could have taken someone’s head off.
46 min: Off we go again.
Half-time: Burnley 0-0 Wolves
Wolves had the ball for most of that half but Burnley will be pretty content with how things went. Pope didn’t have a difficult save to make. But Nuno won’t be alarmed: they are always better in the second half. Burnley, though, will have a strong wind in their favour in the next period. It’s still up for grabs.
45+2 min: Another Wolves corner, their eighth so far. This one doesn’t beat the first man.
45 min: Burnley spring forward on the counter-attack. Gudmundsson curls in a dangerous pass from the left. Rodriguez runs on to it at the edge of the box and takes a touch to try to get it under control. But before he can get off his shot, Coady hurtles over to sabotage his plans.
43 min: Saïss sprays an immaculate pass wide to Traoré, who traps it beautifully and then seeds his cross put out for another corner. Burnley head clear.
40 min: Podence carries the ball in-fiend from the left and then spots a clever run by Jota and loops a dainty ball over the defence. Jota takes it on his chest and hit a left-foot shot on the half-volley in the sidenetting from an difficult angle. So much of that was lovely, but Jota didn’t need to rush that shot at the end.
39 min: Moutinho overhits a corner.
37 min: Bardsley gives the ball away to Podence, who skitters towards the box, zig-zagging this way and that. Three players stand up to him at the edge of the area. Will he slip in Jimenez, who has peeled away to the right? Will he shoot? Nope, he’ll make to dribble to the right and then backheel it to the teammates coming in behind. Nice plan! Except there is no teammate coming in behind him. Burnley give thanks and boot the ball clear.
34 min: Neves thwacks a volley way over from the corner of the box.
32 min: Jimenez flicks on a long punt forward by the keeper - this is a striker who can do it all! - but Podence’s subsequent pass to Jota is cut out.
30 min: Burnley substitution: Taylor can’t continue so he’s replaced by Gudmundsson.
29 min: Play is paused because Taylor needs treatment. He appears to have hurt his knee, but it’s not clear how because no one was near him when he pulled up.
27 min: After a drinks break, Burnley resume the game with a throw-in deep in Wolves’ territory. They keep play up that end for a while, without threatening a breakthrough.
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24 min: McNeil delivers a Moutinho-esque corner. Saiss gets on the end of this one, too, and heads it to safety.
23 min: Another wicked delivery by Moutinho causes panic in the Burley defence. Taylor nods it behind for a corner on the opposite side. Moutinho trots over to take that one too but this time he fails to beat Pieters at the front post.
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21 min: After a shot by Podence is charged down in the D, Wolves recycle possession, working it out wide to Traoré. This time is cross is delicious. Pope opts tso push it behind for a corner before Jota can profit.
19 min: Traoré is released down the right again. Two Burnley players confront him again. He scorches past them both again. But this time he runs out of play before he can deliver a cross.
18 min: Pieters forces Saïss into a mistake wide on the left and then tries to pick out Rodriguez further forward. But Coady dashes across to tidy up.
16 min: McNeill hoists a long diagonal freekick into the box. Tarkowski jumps for it but Patricio comes to claim with authority.
14 min: A rare misplaced pass by Coady presents possession to Burnley, who’ve had very little of the ball so far ... and do very little with it this time.
12 min: Moutinho bends a corner deep into the six-yard box. Saiss holds off Wood but can’t direct his header on target, nodding over from four yards!
9 min: Traoré hurtles past two down the right and floats over a cross for Jimenez. So what’s new? Well, Jimenez didn’t score despite leaping high above Long and powering a useful header at goal. Pope didn’t have to move far to save.
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7 min: McNeill hassles Traoré into giving the ball away in mid-way. A tremendous feat, so no wonder he’s aghast when the referee say he committed a foul and gives Wolves a freekick.
5 min: Rodriguez charges down a pass by Boly, giving Burnley possession in a dangerous area for the first time. But they don’t stay there for long because Wolves converge on them quickly. “A question for you stemming purely out of my own curiosity,” declares Adam Kilne-Schoder. “Any idea why Mike Dean does not carry the coin used for the coin toss during the match and instead hands it off to the linesman? It doesn’t seem to be that much of a weight to haul around.” I can only assume he’s asked the linesman to go put it in a parking meter so he doesn’t get a ticket during the game.
3 min: Traore connects with Jimenez for the first time, picking him out with a typical well aimed cross beyond the back post. The Mexican heads it back across goal but it’s cleared by Long.
2 min: An enterprising start by Wolves ends with Traoré wining a corner on the right. after a nice dart through the middle by Podence. Moutinho’s outswinging corner is headed away by Tarkowski despite pressure from Saïss.
1 min: Burnley-Wolves is go, thanks to a well executed kickoff by the visitors. Now comes the hard part ...
Here come the teams. Wolves are first, wearing that famous old gold clobber. Then come Burnley in their traditional claret and blue.
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Nuno has given his pre-match thoughts to the BBC and they’re the same as he gives to everyone before every match: “it will be a tough match and we have to work hard.” Well, he’s not wrong.
Robbie Keane is one of the BBC’s studio pundits for this game. He’s refreshing. He’s not one of these lads who just wants to jabber out enough words to meet some limit; he wants to engage in a conversation, sharing his thoughts and asking questions of the others (Gary Lineker and Super Jonny Walters, in this case).
Sean Dyche’s pre-match chit-chat: “The players have been superb. Very clear minded and focused. I’m very pleased with the players and how do they go about it .... We’ve shown over a long period that we have a strong jaw ... and we have a very motivated group and we’re going to take all that into the next three games and see where it takes us.”
Teams
Sean Dyche goes with the same team that became the first to take a point off Liverpool at Anfield last weekend. Meanwhile, Nuno has elected to switch both his wingbacks, with Vinagre replacing Jonny on the left and Traoré stepping in for Doherty on the right, as he did to thrilling effect way back at the start of this campaign. And Podence, who was excellent last weekend, keeps his place up front.
Burnley: Pope; Bardsley, Long, Tarkowski, Taylor; Pieters, Brownhill, Westwof, McNeill; Wood, Rodriguez
Subs: Peacock-Farrell, Gudmundson, Brady, Vyra, Thompson, Dunne, Benson, Goodridge, Glennon
Wolves: Patricio; Boly, Coady, Saïss; Traore, Moutinho Neves, Vinagre; Podence, Jimenez, Jota
Subs: Ruddy, Doherty, Kilman, Neto, Jordao, Jonny, Gibbs-White, Dendoncker, Burr
Referee: M Dean
Preamble
Hello. Sean Dyche is not Harry Potts and these are not the heady days of 1960, when Burnley pipped Wolves to the title by one point. But this is a happy era, all the same, for fans of Wolves and Burnley and it could get even better for them: Wolves still have a shot at qualifying for the Champions League while Burnley have the Europa League in their sights. But both sides needs to win here to sustain those aspirations. So we have ourselves a high-stakes showdown between two well drilled teams with very contrasting styles. What’s not to like?
Wolves know that if they win this they still have a chance of overtaking your Chelseas and your Manchester Uniteds to gatecrash the top four. But if they lose it they could be leapfrogged by the likes of Sheffield United and, indeed, Burnley. Burnley’s run-in after this looks decent: they have Norwich and Brighton. Wolves, meanwhile, face Crystal Palace before a final day meeting with Chelsea. What a doozy that last game could be - but only if Wolves win today.
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