PL REPORT: Arsenal 0 Burnley 1

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Battling Burnley deserve their slice of luck to secure first win at the Emirates Stadium and move out the drop-zone

2020-12-14T22:43:32.521Z

PL REPORT: Arsenal 0 Burnley 1

Battling Burnley deserve their slice of luck to secure first win at the Emirates Stadium and move out the drop-zone

2020-12-14T22:43:32.521Z

Battling Burnley deserve their slice of luck to secure first win at the Emirates Stadium and move out the drop-zone

The Clarets finally ended their long wait for a first win at the Emirates Stadium - and a first Premier League win anywhere over the Gunners - to move out of the Premier League’s bottom three with another capital performance.

Sean Dyche’s men had won on their last two visits to London post-lockdown at the end of last season.

And they made it a memorable hat-trick with a 73rd-minute own-goal from Arsenal captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang giving the Clarets’ their first away win of the season and lifting them to within four points of the mis-firing Gunners whose miserable home form continued.

Burnley haven’t enjoyed playing at the Emirates much either with their previous six visits all ending pointless.

They’ve had various bits of bad luck on many of those occasions but this time they deserved their piece of good fortune from an excellent performance full of character and determination which earned them a first win at any Arsenal ground since September 1974.

The last time Arsenal had lost four successive home league games the Clarets contributed to their woes with a 4-2 win at Highbury making it three in a row 61 years ago this weekend - John Connelly scoring a hat-trick as Burnley headed towards winning the league title.

The Gunners’ current lean spell had not been helped by their failure to score a goal anywhere from open play in the Premier League in more than 11 hours once the Clarets had negotiated the opening 10 minutes.

And there wasn’t much more than that gone when Burnley should have scored themselves to go in front and dampen the enthusiasm of the 2,000 Arsenal fans allowed in as the Clarets played in front of a crowd for the first time since March.

PL REPORT: Arsenal 0 Burnley 1 - Image 2

Robbie Brady, building on the confidence of his goal-scoring performance against Everton last time out, delivered a perfect cross which Chris Wood headed wide from in front of goal.

That was the best chance of the opening half, although the Gunners - who were to finish the game with 10 men following the dismissal of Granit Xhaka - did have one excellent opportunity of their own to take the lead.

Burnley were annoyed that Matt Lowton was not given a free-kick when he was challenged late by Bukayo Saka when clearing the ball.

Instead, the Gunners were allowed to build an attack which ended with Kieran Tierney pulling the ball back for Alexandre Lacazette to side-foot an effort from eight yards which Nick Pope saved superbly with his legs.

That apart, the Clarets’ back line – helped by some real graft in front of them from the oustanding Ashley Westwood and Josh Brownhill – repelled everything that came their way in a measured first 45 minutes that underlined Burnley’s growing confidence on the back of an improved run of just one defeat in their last four games.

There was a test to come at the start of the second half, though, as Arsenal quickly made a couple of chances with low balls pulled back into the penalty area.

Tierney and Saka were the recipients, but neither was able to beat the admirable Pope, who got down well to save the first effort and then stood up to react swiftly to beat away Saka’s first-time shot.

The pressure was mounting and just as Dyche was preparing to try and reverse the flow by sending on Ashley Barnes in place of Jay Rodriguez, whose 150th league appearance for the Clarets ended early, the Gunners went down to 10 men.

Xhaka was penalised for a foul on Dwight McNeil and then in the push-and-shove that followed grabbed Westwood around the neck to earn his second red card against a Burnley once referee Graham Scott had been prompted by VAR to look at the pitch-side monitor and decided to upgrade his initial caution.

PL REPORT: Arsenal 0 Burnley 1 - Image 4

Despite the numerical disadvantage the Gunners still carried a threat. But openings were beginning to come for the Clarets, Ben Mee nodding wide from a corner and Barnes lifting an effort over the top from Wood’s lay-off.

And with 17 minutes to go Burnley got their winner. Mohamed Elneny was perhaps fortunate to survive another VAR check for a hand-off in the face of James Tarkowski but after he was booked the delayed corner was delivered by Westwood.

The ball just eluded substitute Matej Vydra but glanced off the head of Aubameyang – so often the scourge of the Clarets with seven goals in the previous five meetings of the clubs – and flew into the net to break the deadlock.

Inevitably given Burnley’s history here there had to be some late anxiety but the Clarets defended superbly and Lowton’s clearance from in front of goal in the sixth-minute of stoppage time summed up the will to end the hoodoo and give real momentum to their recovery.

Arsenal: Leno; Bellerin (Maitland-Niles 74), Gabriel, Holding, Tierney; Elneny, Xhaka; Willian (Nketiah 82), Saka; Lacazette (Ceballos 61), Aubameyang. Substitutes: Runarsson, Mustafi, Willock, Rowe.

Booked: Bellerin, Elneny Sent off: Xhaka

Burnley: Pope; Lowton, Tarkowski, Mee, Taylor; Brady, Westwood, Brownhill, McNeil; Wood (Vydra 70), Rodriguez (Barnes 59). Substitutes: Peacock-Farrell, Pieters, Long, Dunne, Benson.