Chairman's Notes: West Brom

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2021-02-20T12:00:00.000Z

Chairman's Notes: West Brom

2021-02-20T12:00:00.000Z

The important fixtures continue to come thick and fast,as we welcome West Bromwich Albion to Turf Moor this afternoon to complete another three games in eight days.

We took a richly deserved point from the hard-fought 1-1 draw with Fulham here on Wednesday evening, which moved up the Clarets to 15th in the table.

While it could have been more, four points from the first two games of our Premier League trilogy represents a fantastic return for Sean and a squad which has battledthrough injuries to key players – a run of bad luck which has followed the team all season.

While it was disappointing to see both Johann Berg Gudmundsson and Robbie Brady forced off against Fulham, Ben Mee and Matej Vydra will hopefully be available for selection today and the players who have stepped into the team in their absence have performed admirably.

This club and its wider community are built on strong character and we showed that in abundance against Fulham. I was impressed at how the team immediately responded to going a goal down against the run of play and adapted to injuries throughout.

It is always nice to see our strikers link up so well for a goal and, if paired again, let’s hope Jay Rodriquez and Ashley Barnes can keep up that relationship against Jay’s former club today.

For the second game in a row we’ll be coming up against a side full of confidence following a surprising result – Fulham defeating Everton before our fixture on Wednesday and West Brom arriving in Burnley straight from a good draw against Manchester United.

A team coached by Sam Allardyce will always make things difficult and this is going to be another test of the strength, mettle and competitive spirit we’ve become well known for.

While today may be a fixture between two historic clubs who were founder members of the Football League, we also had a view into the cutting-edge world of eSports on Tuesday, with Burnley hosting its FIFA 21 ePremierLeague playoffs.

I enjoyed catching some of the virtual action and want to offer my congratulations to Salman Ahmed and Jasper Ashworth who won the PS4 and Xbox One tournaments respectively. They will both now go onto represent the Clarets in the live finals this spring.

As the fastest-growing sport in the world, eSports is something that would be amiss of us to ignore as a club, and I believe there is a chance for us to engage new audiences through new content and tournaments. I’m sure you’ll hear more about that in the future.