Dave's take on the Bees win...

[The Bedlington Terrier]

For once it’s a “Happy Sunday” for the Clarets Mad resident feature writer Dave Thornley, who reflects on yesterday's first win of the season for Burnley to celebrate Sean Dyche’s nine-year anniversary in the manager’s hot seat at Turf Moor.
If all those years of following Burnley has taught us anything, it is that when the chips are down, when it’s all or nothing, the Clarets can more often than not be relied upon to come through.
After going winless throughout their first nine Premier League matches of the season, the pressure on the team, on the manager and indeed on the supporters was growing in intensity. Surely, they could not allow the clocks to go back without an entry in the win’s column. Surely there would be no way back from that?
There had been promising signs, at Leicester and last week at Southampton, but a winless league run at home stretching all the way back to January was haunting the club like a Halloween spectre.
Brentford provided yesterday’s opposition; currently surfing the wave of optimism that newly promoted clubs often ride. Some, like Sheffield United and Huddersfield in recent seasons, are wiped out in their second season; some, like Burnley, can sustain it for longer.
It remains to be seen what fate will befall Brentford, but they are a well-run club, with realistic aspirations, a good manager, and a competitive team, they would provide Burnley with a challenge.
Fortunately, it was a challenge Burnley would rise to meet in a first half performance that was the most positive and emphatic the Clarets have produced since their demolition of Wolves last season.
By half time, Burnley had scored three goals of breath-taking quality. The first in only the fifth minute; Matt Lowton bending a long pass into what fans of my vintage recognise as the inside right position. A brush against the knee of a Brentford defender enabled the ball to sit up invitingly for Chris Wood to lash a fiercely struck angled shot into the corner of the net.
It was almost two when Johann Berg Gudmundsson broke clear, but the Brentford keeper blocked his shot, and we all thought it was two, when Wood’s flicked header was turned in by Maxwel Cornet at the climax of a flowing move.
Regular readers will be well acquainted with my distaste of VAR ruling out goals for offsides which are so slender they could never be detected by the naked eye. So, let’s leave it at that and move on, don’t get me started on the VAR nonsense again!
In the event, it mattered not a jot; Charlie Taylor’s perfectly flighted cross from the left wing landed precisely onto the head of Matt Lowton, who headed home with the aplomb of a seasoned striker.
A mere four minutes later the match was put beyond Brentford’s reach when Cornet brought a Dwight McNeil through ball under his spell; a shimmy past a defender then a superbly placed finish into the top corner.
Since his arrival, Cornet has lifted both the supporters and his teammates with his consummate skill and endearing enthusiasm. He may well be the most pulsating and technically gifted player to wear a Burnley shirt since Robbie Blake, although Steven Defour and Kieran Trippier would feature prominently in that debate.
The second half was a more sedate affair, Brentford accrued a greater share of possession, but could do little with it until Bees’ substitute Saman Ghoddos pulled a goal back with a smartly taken volley after seventy-nine minutes.
The goal caused a ripple of tension around Turf Moor, but in truth the three points were never really under threat as Burnley saw out the remainder of the game with a degree of comfort.
When the Clarets play with the kind of precision, conviction, gusto, and ruthlessness in front of goal that they displayed in the first half yesterday they are a match for any of the teams outside the top three or four.
It is only one win and there is much work to be done if Burnley are to advance to a position of safety, but on yesterday’s evidence they definitely possess the tools to do so.

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[sinkov]

I still can't quite work out what happened in the second half, we were never going to chuck the kitchen sink at it when 3-0 up, obviously we weren't, but what happened to the quick, intelligent, incisive passes of the first half, they'd gone, it was back to lump it and chase it. Repeating our first half performance will see us staying up comfortably, but in the second half we were back to the football that saw us go 12 PL games without a win, and that's relegation form.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

I still can't quite work out what happened in the second half, we were never going to chuck the kitchen sink at it when 3-0 up, obviously we weren't, but what happened to the quick, intelligent, incisive passes of the first half, they'd gone, it was back to lump it and chase it. Repeating our first half performance will see us staying up comfortably, but in the second half we were back to the football that saw us go 12 PL games without a win, and that's relegation form.

Come on mon ami, you have played football. 3-0 at half time, game over, job done, game management time, three points in the bag - Chelski up next, save the legs and lungs and make sure we give them a game at the Bridge.