Burnley 1 Spurs 1: A Point Breaks the Drought

After a run of four straight defeats, a point at Turf Moor produced a merciful end to a dismal run, although it does little to enhance any hopes of European football next season. Dele Alli’s second half penalty cancelled out Chris Wood’s 13th minute opener in a fairly even and dour encounter in Lancashire.

The draw saw Tottenham slip down to eighth place in the Premier League table ahead of a pivotal month of fixtures.

Clarets Sparkle

Burnley had already seen two early chances go begging before Chris Wood pounced to claim that opening strike. The New Zealand international reacted fastest after Jay Rodriguez’s shot had rebounded off Hugo Lloris and by that stage, the Clarets were firmly in charge.

The situation remained the same for the remainder of the first period but within six minutes of the restart, we were level. Pushed forward into the central striking role, Dele had made little impact but he calmly converted after Erik Lamela was fouled on the edge of the box.

Burnley laid claims to a penalty of their own while Giovani Lo Celso’s curling effort late on could have snatched the points but at the end of 90 minutes, a draw was probably the fairest result.

Attitude

jose mourinho

Jose Mourinho

Speaking to the club’s official website after the game, Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho said:

I’m pleased with the reaction (in the second half), but I think we had conditions to perform better in the first half.

Generally, a very good game, of course it’s not the result we want, and we showed that in the way we played until the last second, always trying to win, but we didn’t manage to score more than one goal.

Burnley is a team that defends well and doesn’t concede many goals, but (the fact that) we arrived in many dangerous positions and didn’t manage to (score again) is hard for us. I’m pleased with the reaction, pleased with the attitude.

Endgames

Tottenham’s last, faint hope of landing a trophy this season now rests with our second leg, round of 16 Champions League tie with RB Leipzig on Tuesday night. Facing a 1-0 deficit from the first game, it’s clearly going to be a tall order against the Bundesliga title contenders and we’re all hoping for the type of Champions League miracle that punctuated the previous campaign.

Following the return in Germany, we will host Manchester United in next weekend’s Super Sunday game and it’s not a good time to be playing a resurgent Red Devils team. Once that fixture is out of the way, someone thought it was a good idea for Spurs and West Ham to play at 8pm on a Friday night so let’s all look forward to that clash on March 20.

We like to emphasise on this blog that we want to keep things positive and, having muted a number of negative Twitter accounts, we’re trying to remain that way. It is tough, however, with a patched up team that is finally paying the price for not reinforcing the squad in the striking department. With three tough fixtures ahead, let’s see what happens and whether we can maintain that positive focus through the rest of the month.

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