Dave Thornley reflects on two back-to-back important home wins at our “Happy Place”.

A week ago, there was detected a wormhole in the space/time continuum, for the first time in several years, Burnley were not the highest placed club in Lancashire, some other club whose name escapes me, had assumed custody of the top spot in the Championship table.

Happily, home wins over Norwich City and Reading allowed the wormhole to be repaired and the natural order of things to be restored.

The two matches represented tough tests for Vincent Kompany’s Clarets and that they were able to overcome those tests further emphasises the progress this young, talented, and ambitious group of players are making under Kompany’s guidance.

Firstly, the midweek encounter with Norwich, a solid, unpretentious club who consistently punch above their weight and who, in that respect, are not dis-similar to Burnley. Despite arriving at Turf Moor on the back of an indifferent run, they are nevertheless rightly assumed to be one of the Championship’s likely promotion challengers.

The match followed a pattern often seen at Turf Moor this season, one in which Burnley dominated possession and forced the visitors into defending deep.

Facing an evening spent chasing the ball, Norwich, to their credit, increased their intensity in the second half and began to engage Burnley more effectively and Cantwell almost put them ahead early in the half.

Burnley were not to be denied however and just as Norwich were anticipating a hard-earned point, a right-wing cross was intercepted by Grant Hanley’s arm. The referee pointed immediately to the spot.

Norwich keeper Angus Gunn (hands up all those who remember his dad between the sticks for the Canaries), dressed to resemble a pink highlight pen, did his little routine to put off Jay Rodriguez as he lined up the penalty, but Jay Rod is a little too long in the tooth to be susceptible to such shenanigans and smashed the spot kick into the roof of the net.

Teemu Pukki, one of the Championships more potent strikers, had a late breakaway chance to equalise, but the Finnish finisher saw his effort repelled by Aro Muric’s smart save.

This was a huge win for Burnley, hard fought and hard earned against one of the Championship’s toughest opponents.
And so it was that Burnley were back on top of the league table ahead of yesterday’s visit of Paul Ince’s Reading.

Ince, a hard running, competitive and aggressive midfielder in his Manchester United glory days had clearly moulded his Reading team in his own image, right down to including his own son in the line-up. They came with an intent to battle, to hassle, to irritate and to generally unsettle Burnley.

For a quite a while it worked perfectly, deprived of the services of Jack Cork and Josh Cullen in midfield, Burnley (despite a strong performance from Samuel Bastien) were unable to unpick the Royals’ defence and early in the second half they fell behind when a long clearance from their goalkeeper was flicked on into the path of Ince who slotted the ball home.

Mr Kompany immediately turned to his bench and sent on Vitinho and Manuel Benson, it was a decisive move. A break down the left flank after 66 minutes resulted in the ball falling for Benson on the edge of the Reading penalty area, his superbly struck volley precisely and perfectly found the corner of the net.

Prolonged stoppages resulted in the addition of seven minutes additional time. Time enough for Reading to have a strong penalty claim rejected when Ian Maatsen’s challenge upended Tom Ince. Burnley definitely got away with that one and made the most of their good fortune when Benson’s teasing cross found Annas Zaroury to head in at the far post and settle a match of brooding intensity in the Clarets’ favour.

The reaction of the two managers after the game was interesting; Vincent Kompany was quick to admit with refreshing frankness that Burnley had got away with the Maatsen challenge; whist Ince was, perhaps understandably, incandescent with rage at the perceived injustice but then descended into churlishness with a dig at Burnley’s fans for having the effrontery to celebrate the victory. Ince when on to sarcastically label Burnley as “supposedly the best team in the league”.

A mere glance at the league table will confirm that as of right now, there is no “supposedly” about it.

Two Yorkshire teams to tussle with coming next, right now I would happily settle for a total of four points from the two fixtures and get ready for the visit of the team with no name. (TEC).

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