I don't expect us to be worst at conceding set piece goals this season , and I don't expect us to worst at scoring set piece goals . Considering we had Taylor , Siggy , Williams , Ki not starting and a totally new striker playing his first game for us , I think this away game victory will totally boot our season and we will improve from here . Massive 3 points out of the gate.
.................and our shiny, new £15 million striker is to come in to the team which means there's a lot of selection headaches for Mr Guidolin. An away win is a great start to the season. The second half wasn't pretty, but we stood firm and grafted for the three points. There's plenty of improvement to be made, but I am sure that will come as the season progresses. NB: Williams doesn't play for us!
Good win against a dogged side. They had a clear tactic - knock the ball into the wide channels, turn our defence and pick up throw-ins deep in our territory and corners. They did it well - consistently dropping balls between the penalty area and sidelines with decent weight not to give away goal kicks. Our defence was constantly having to deal with the ball facing our own goal-line, and it created a fair bit of easy territory for Burnley. Cork and Fer were understandably anonymous in a game that seemed to omit the central midfielders of both sides for large periods - and when they were asked to make a tackle, you could see they were going into the tackle cold having probably not seen any action for a few minutes while just jogging up and down the pitch trying to stay in position. The defence dealt with a lot of aerial attacks which was pleasing, and Amat and Fernandez were physical and strong against two very big and powerful forwards. In the end, we were the team that looked like we had the quality to create the more telling chances. Yes, Fabianski made two great saves, but we also missed a few sitters (Routledge, Fernandez and Llorente the stand out ones for me). Generally, when we got forward, we looked more dangerous than them and eventually won the game with a good, forced error. When we could get the ball down and under control, we worked into the wide areas very effectively and tended to get dangerous balls into the box with good regularity. Next week, we've got to put those sitters away, but if we can continue to play with the ball as we did today, we are going to be a very dangerous side this season.
One thing that stood out for me on the match interview afterwards, Guidolin mentioned that last season we would have lost a match like this, and I think he is right, he gave a honest opinion of the match. Now we move onto Hull and get those points that we need to stay up.
Guidolin impresses me more and more. His honesty, coupled with a complete lack of ego, are very endearing qualities.
