Tottenham Hotspur earned a costly 2-0 win over Burnley, losing two of their important players Victor Wanyama and Harry Winks to injury. Eric Dier and Heung-Min Son got a goal each to close the gap on leaders Chelsea to seven points who lost 1-2 against Crystal Palace. Burnley were quite organised in the first half and Tottenham really struggled to break the deadlock until Dier slotted calmly past Tom Heaton to give Tottenham the lead in the 66th minute. Heung-Min Son killed the game off in the 77th minute to give Tottenham a two-goal advantage over Burnley. Tottenham kept up the offensive pressure to keep Burnley on the back foot until the final whistle. Below is the tactical analysis of the game:
1st Half:
Tottenham started the game really slow and Burnley seemed the more likely candidates for the first goal. Burnley did really well to keep things tight at the back and Matthew Lowton and Stephen Ward did well to put pressure on the Spurs’ full-backs with their runs. It seemed as if Sean Dyche had instructed Burnley to put in long balls for the forwards to latch onto and play direct football to counter Tottenham’s high defensive line but Tottenham did well eventually even if they failed to stop the crosses.
Tottenham, on the other hand, struggled really badly to break the shackles, often playing the ball back to defenders after finding themselves under pressure from Burnley midfielders. With both sides doing enough defensively, it seemed that the game was headed for a draw. Dele Alli missed a sitter after Eriksen’s shot rebounded off Heaton and all Alli had to do was put the ball past the keeper but the England International failed to hit the target, hitting the ball above the crossbar.
To make matters worse for Tottenham, they lost both the central midfielders, Wanyama and Winks to injury at the brink of half-time which meant that Pochettino had to introduce Dembele and Sissoko.
2nd Half:
It seemed as if the game was still going nowhere despite good early Tottenham pressure in the second half. Keane and Mee were doing an excellent job at the back to keep score to 0-0. The goal seemed too hard to come by for Tottenham but they finally found a way when Burnley failed to clear the ball well enough and it ended up with Eric Dier near the 6-yard line, who slotted calmly past the crowd of defenders and the keeper to make it 1-0.
This gave Tottenham immense confidence and they started to show signs of their true brilliance, threading a good number of passes in the opposite half. Tottenham finally found another goal in the 77th minute through Heung Min Son. Eriksen gave a brilliant pre-assist to put Alli through, who crossed it to Son and the South Korean put the ball home to make it 2-0.
The offensive pressure from Spurs continued and the North London outfit now dictated the tempo of the game through Dembele who was quite influential after coming on. Tottenham kept up the pressure until the final whistle to take all three points from Turf Moor.
Sean Dyche unlucky:
It seemed as if Burnley were really well prepared to compete against Spurs and they were quite unlucky that their defensive hard work in the first 65 minute went in vain after a single incidence of lapse of concentration. Burnley did really well in the first half and also put several crosses in, but their finishing in front of the goal let them down. They were often wasteful of their chances they got and taking off Gray seemed to be a really bad move since they could have established some offensive pressure to get some foothold into the game and give them a chance of levelling the proceedings.
The long injury list for Tottenham:
With Harry Kane already out and Rose suffering a setback in his recovery, matters went from bad to worse from Tottenham. Wanyama and Winks were both subbed off after injuries and Vincent Janssen too suffered a cramp just before being subbed off. Given their easy run-in they still have an outside chance of beating Chelsea to the title but with injuries to important players, they have suffered a huge setback in their pursuit.
