Burnley 1 Hull City 1: The Tigers pass Turf Moor test

Hull City’s promising start to the season continued at Turf Moor as The Tigers picked up a very good away point against a Burnley team who are unrecognisable under the management of Vince Kompany.

It might just be the 130 miles of LED they’ve had installed for Premier League games but Turf Moor itself looked very smart for a night game under their peculiar floodlights and Kompany’s side looked the part too. They’ve turned over a lot of players in a short time, like us, but he’s already established a way of playing that dominates possession in a very un-Burnley-like way and City would have to defend for even larger periods than Saturday’s game against also-relegated Norwich City.

City: Ingram, Coyle, Elder, Figueiredo, Greaves, Jones, Slater, Tufan (Cannon), Sayyadmanesh (Williams), Estupiñán (Covil), Tetteh (Wilks).

City were unchanged from the weekend but with Ryan Woods’ transfer from Birmingham being ongoing and none of the injured players recovering, the bench was again short of options to change a game. Fortunately, the first XI and the 4-3-3 formation retained from the weekend are looking like a team that compete with the top sides in the division and City are much better balanced as an attacking outfit than they were 10 days ago at Preston.

Burnley wanted to play from the back from the first minute but had some iffy moments, particularly goalkeeper Muric who never looked comfortable with the ball at his feet. We had dodgy moments of our own with Figueiredo getting too close to Rodriquez on the right and the striker spun him and forced a good save by Ingram at his near post. Burnley’s midfield of Cullen, Brownhill and Cork are as good as you’ll see at this level and they moved the ball constantly and pressed City back but Jones and Slater, who were immense again, did a lot of dirty work to protect the back four. When we won the ball back, we were threatening on the break, particularly through Tufan who just oozes class and exchanges touches brilliantly, particularly with Slater and Tetteh and is deceptively mobile.

Despite their possession, it was that greater threat on the counter-attack that provided the breakthrough. Figueiredo cleared from right back, Estupiñán headed it round the corner and Tufan burst clear on the right and with incredible cool, sat the keeper down and passed the ball into the net at the near post [0-1]. It was bedlam in the well packed away end with joy equalling the disbelief at seeing such quality from a City player.

Burnley responded well to the goal and continued to play as they’d planned. City had moments to counter with the diagonal balls wide for Tetteh and Allahyar looking on every time. They chose their moments to press and it was effective. Tufan forced a poor backpass from Taylor which Estupiñán didn’t really react to and despite the Colombian looking favourite, Muric was able to clear the ball under pressure. Almost from the clearance, the winger Bastien pulled Coyle inside and left space that they brilliantly exploited with left-back Maatsen putting the ball on a plate for Rodriguez to equalise [1-1]. Maatsen’s a great player. He ripped us to shreds last season when he was on loan at Coventry from Chelsea. Fortunately, this was his only real moment here.

The hosts never really pushed on from the goal with the pattern of lots of possession but few chances continuing. The main danger was the referee, who gave them every 50/50 and showed little interest when City players suffered the same bits of contact. That, along with City’s continuing inability to defend a short corner raised the temperature in the away end on an unusually cool night. It’s been about five years now and we still cause ourselves problems every time a team puts two men out to take a set piece. Any team who scouts us properly will see how poor we are at it. We got away with it here with the centre-half heading into the side netting. A rare poor touch from Greaves left us open on the left momentarily but Elder defused the situation brilliantly. I’m not Elder’s biggest fan but he had a good game on Saturday and he was tremendous at Turf Moor.

Half time: Burnley 1 Hull City 1

We took a pasting in the second half. If you told me possession was 95/5% in their favour, I’d believe you. We are extremely well organised though and for all the ball they had, Burnley struggled to play through us. When they put crosses in, Figueiredo and Greaves headed everything, when they got the ball wide, Coyle and Elder stood up and the wide forwards dropped in and when they moved the ball through the middle, Jones and Slater were always in the way somewhere. There was no space between the lines and Burnley had to work incredibly hard to create a sight of goal and when they did, they found Matt Ingram is in incredible form at the moment.

The counter attack remained a danger, for now, and City had the two best openings despite the statistical pummelling. Tufan and Tetteh combined beautifully and Ozan slid in Estupiñán whose first touch took him wide and he shot past the keeper but Harwood-Bellis cleared it in the six-yard box and it looked unlikely to go in. When Arveladze came over at the end to applaud the City fans, he broke off clapping to give Estupiñán a lesson in where to take his touch and get his shot off before resuming his applause. The second chance came from Ingram’s only error all night as he gave Jones a ridiculous pass with a man right up his arse. Jones somehow escaped to find Slater who nutmegged the oncoming midfielder and without breaking stride floated an inch perfect pass into the wide area for Allahyar, who took it and drove for goal but took the ball too wide with his last touch and the keeper blocked his shot. To make matters worse, Allahyar went down and stayed down with a very bad looking left hamstring injury. 

The squad is starting to look threadbare already and the Allahyar injury doesn’t help. He’s by far the fittest of the forward players and the only one who can put in this level of effort for 90 minutes so losing him early was a huge blow. When we’d made the other subs over the next 15 or so, we ended up with a front 6 of Williams-Cannon-Jones-Slater-Covil-Wilks. That’s barely going to trouble anyone in League One. That’s not a knock on the effort these players put in. Cannon, Covil and Williams gave it everything and even Wilks looked much hungrier than at Bradford last week. They’re just not anywhere near good enough and it meant we conceded any hope of winning and had to sit in and defend for almost 25 minutes. The organisation remained impressive and the defensive effort was as good as we’ve ever seen. But this is still a squad in transition and it shows.

For all the pressure, we were relatively unscathed. Rodriquez wasted their best chance, shooting straight at Ingram on the stretch after Figueiredo’s header had rebounded off Jones to gift an opportunity. But despite making some useful looking subs and chucking on Ashley Barnes, Ingram didn’t have another save to make with only the side-netting and Greaves’s right leg being troubled by shots. That didn’t stop the last 15 minutes feeling like 15 hours and the inevitability of a Burnley winner, built on years and years of disappointment, was on everyone’s mind. So the final whistle was a joyous moment. 

Full time: Burnley 1 Hull City 1

8 points from 4 games, the last two against relegated Premier League teams, is a fantastic outcome. Far more than I hoped at this stage, I’ll readily admit. Given the circumstances with injuries, new players still being a way off completing 90 minutes and incoming transfers always taking about 3 weeks to complete after they’re reported as “done” in the media – it’s pretty remarkable. 

It’s built on the solid foundation we had last season and for all the excitement of Estupiñán, Tetteh, Allahyar and, particularly, Tufan, it’s the magnificent Greaves, Ingram, Jones, Slater, Coyle and Elder and the rock solid addition of Figueiredo who provide the basis for the performances we’ve seen so far. Credit also to Arveladze, Peter van der Veen and Andy Dawson who know how to set a team up and have taken 2 points away from home this season that we wouldn’t have picked up in the past.

Much better City teams than this would have crumbled at Turf Moor under the bright lights, the constant pressure and the feverish atmosphere of the last 25 minutes. These lads were outstanding.