Having Saturday’s comprehensive win against Sheffield United, the Clarets face two away games this week, kicking off tonight against Wolves at Molineux before Saturday’s long trip to Brighton.
The league table shows us in 19th place in the Premier League table, two points behind Luton in the lowest safe position but we’d be four points behind 17th place Bournemouth if Everton hadn’t had points deducted.
So, very little changed since my last preview, other than moving ahead of Sheffield United, yet there is a different feel among the Burnley fans. It really is amazing what one win will do, especially when it’s a big 5-0 win coming from an excellent performance.
You sensed the renewed optimism leaving the Turf last Saturday and it’s been there online too, certainly on this site’s message board, and while I’m sure we don’t travel to Wolves as favourites, we travel there with much more hope than we might have thought a week ago.
We still have fewer points than we’ve ever had at this stage of a Premier League season and the seven we have won is at least two less than in any division since three points for a win was introduced back in 1981. That means there is still so much work to be done. There might not be any lights switched on at the end of the tunnel yet but that one win has certainly provided a flicker of hope.
Now we travel to Wolves, two years and four days since our last visit. It was 0-0 that night and that would probably be a good result again. One thing for certain, it would give us another clean sheet and Saturday’s, our first of the season, was as key as anything in that game.
Looking back on that game, Zeki Amdouni, who scored the third goal and his first at Turf Moor, said: “It’s always a good feeling to come into training after winning a game, but it’s also important to make sure we are ready for the next game around the corner. It’s a nice moment to score, especially at Turf Moor but to win the game was important to us. To score a goal and help the team out is always a great feeling. We’ve been playing well recently, the last three or four games have been really good performances but just not the result we wanted. To win the game and have more points now is good for us, but we know that it’s not going to be easy going to play Wolves on Tuesday.”
And now, with two away games this week, he added: “I think sometimes it’s not bad to have more than one game in a week and we know that in December it’s always a busy time of year with lots of games. “It’s an important time of year for matches and we have to work hard on that, recover and be ready for it starting from Tuesday night.”
Amdouni has missed just one of our fourteen league games this season, scoring his other Premier League goal at Nottingham Forest where he’d previously scored in the League Cup. He will almost certainly be in tonight’s team which I suspect won’t show too many changes from the one that beat Sheffield United. Vincent Kompany confirmed that both Josh Cullen and Jack Cork were out and we know that Jordan Beyer will sit out this game through suspension with Hjalmar Ekdal predicted to be the player to come in and play alongside Dara O’Shea at the back.
The team against Sheffield United was: James Trafford, Vitinho, Dara O’Shea, Jordan Beyer, Charlie Taylor, Jacob Bruun Larsen, Josh Brownhill, Sander Berge, Luca Koleosho, Zeki Amdouni, Jay Rodriguez. Subs: Lawrence Vigouroux, Hjalmar Ekdal, Han-Noah Massengo, Aaron Ramsey, Jόhann Berg Guðmundsson, Nathan Redmond, Mike Trésor, Wilson Odobert, Michael Obafemi.
I had Wolves earmarked as one of the potential relegation candidates when the season kicked off back in August following a late change of manager and not too much in the way of recruitment.
Julen Lopetegui went with Gary O’Neil, who had just been sacked at Bournemouth, coming in as his replacement on the Wednesday before the season’s start with Wolves. They lost 1-0 at Manchester United and followed that up with a 4-1 home defeat against Brighton. They won their next game, very fortunately, at Everton, but that was the only victory in the opening six games.
My prediction at the time looked sound, but then came a run of five games without defeat and they have lost only twice since, both times away and both times in games when controversial penalties were given against them.
They currently sit in 13th place with fifteen points, and right now you probably wouldn’t think they’d drop into that bottom of the table battle which is currently eight points beneath them.
They’ve scored nineteen goals in their fourteen games to date. That’s just four more than us although they’ve not benefited from a 5-0 win and they haven’t scored more than two goals in any game, something they’ve done six times. Their main goal threats have been South Korean Hwang Hee-chan and Brazilian Matheus Cunha with seven and four respectively.
Hwang Hee-Chan (pictured above) was signed from German club RB Leipzig in the summer of 2021 on loan, a move he made permanent a year later. Cunha arrived from Atlético Madrid on loan last January before moving on a permanent basis in the summer.
Goalkeeper José Sá was replaced with an injury during their defeat at Arsenal last Saturday but O’Neil confirmed he’d done some training and felt fine. He also reported that Rayan Aït-Nouri is doing well on his way back from injury although tonight’s game will come too early for him. It’s similar for Pedro Neto too. However, Jonny Otto will not feature having been involved in a training ground incident that the manager said the club is dealing with internally. They will have Mario Lemina back after he missed the Arsenal game with a suspension.
The Wolves team against Arsenal was: José Sá, Max Kilman, Craig Dawson, João Gomes, Nélson Semedo, Boubacar Traoré, Tommy Doyle, Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, Hugo Bueno, Matheus Cunha, Hwang Hee-chan. Subs: Dan Bentley, Matt Doherty, Santiago Bueno, Fábio Silva, Sasa Kalajdzic, Pablo Sarabia, Tawanda Chirewa, Matthew Whittingham, Justin Hubner.
LAST TIME WE WERE THERE
In what had been a difficult start to the season, we travelled to Wolves in December 2021 on the back of an unbeaten run that had included away draws at Southampton and Chelsea.
Our previous game against Spurs had been ruled out because of the snow and that meant Sean Dyche had to go into this game without suspended pair James Tarkowski and Ashley Westwood with Nathan Collins, who would sign for Wolves at the end of the season, and Jack Cork coming in.
It was a night when the point won was fully deserved and also a night when we potentially saw the beginning of the end for striker Chris Wood. He’d scored what proved to be his final Burnley goal in the previous game but had a strop when he was taken off, a strop that was picked up by the television cameras.
We were still 18th in the table and, like this season, knew we still had a lot to do.
The teams were;
Wolves: José Sá, Max Kilman, Conor Coady, Romain Saïss, Nélson Semedo, Leander Dendoncker, João Moutinho, Rayan Aït-Nouri, Adama Traoré, Raúl Jiménez, Hwang Hee-chan (Machado Trincão 84). John Ruddy, Louie Moulden, K-Jana Hoever, Hugo Bueno, Chem Campbell, Luk Cundle, Fábio Silva.
Burnley: Nick Pope, Matt Lowton, Nathan Collins, Ben Mee, Charlie Taylor, Jóhann Berg Guðmunudsson (Matěj Vydra 72), Jack Cork, Josh Brownhill, Dwight McNeil, Chris Wood (Jay Rodriguez 59), Maxwel Cornet (Aaron Lennon 85). Subs not used: Wayne Hennessey, Will Norris, Connor Roberts, Kevin Long, Bobby Thomas, Erik Pieters.
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