Burnley 2 - 0 Swansea - 18th Nov 2017

Burnley 2 - 0 Swansea

Jack Cork and Ashley Barnes on target as Burnley ease past Swansea City

Home team scorers
Jack Cork 29
Ashley Barnes 40

These are historic times for a historic club and miserable ones for what had been a modern-day success story. Burnley have now recorded a first hat-trick of top-flight wins since 1975. They are still level on points with Liverpool and Arsenal but Swansea remain rooted in the relegation zone. Their American co-owner Steve Kaplan witnessed a wretched display and while Paul Clement’s job may not be under immediatethreat, too many more such performances will surely change that.

Swansea’s irritation should be compounded by the avoidable element of their fifth successive defeat. They off-loaded Jack Cork to Burnley in the summer and, with crushing inevitability, the midfielder’s November, which already included his England debut, got better when he scored the opening goal. Ashley Barnes added another as Burnley struck twice for the first time in the league since their 3-2 win over Chelsea.

If the meeting of the two teams with the fewest shots on target in the division promised little by way of excitement, the game was surprisingly open. That may have been despite Swansea’s tactics. For the first time this season Clement opted for a conventional 4-4-2 in a bid to match Burnley’s similar formation. The fit-again Renato Sanches, a European Championship-winning central midfielder, was crowbarred into the team as an auxiliary left winger.

Swansea have been starved of goals since the summer sales of Gylfi Sigurdsson and Fernando Llorente. They almost received unlikely assistance. When Jordan Ayew crossed, Matthew Lowton met it with a cannonball of a volley. The Burnley right-back was relieved he did not find his own net.

The theme of defensive generosity continued. Lukasz Fabianski scuffed a clearance to Steven Defour, the Belgian took aim from 35 yards. The goalkeeper recovered to save and did better a minute later to repel a stinging drive from the Burnley midfielder. He impressed still more by diving to his right to block Ashley Barnes’s header, though the forward perhaps should have scored.

Burnley started with Chris Wood omitted. The New Zealander had arrived back from Peru, courtesy of three flights, on Friday morning following a World Cup play-off.

Not that Burnley required their top scorer to take the lead. Cork surged past Kyle Naughton, passed to Barnes and when Robbie Brady delivered a cross he arrived unmarked to head home against the club that sold him in the summer. Clement had insisted Swansea did not regret selling Cork but his direct replacement, Roque Mesa, did not even make the bench.

The influential Barnes, meanwhile, justified his selection ahead of Sam Vokes, the scorer of the winner at Southampton, by opening his account for the season. He rifled in an unstoppable shot via the post after being found by Jeff Hendrick.

Having made a goal, the Irishman would have scored one but for another intervention from Fabianski, coming off his line to block an attempted lob. But Swansea had a more immediate need for goals. Clement brought on Wilfried Bony, who promptly blazed a shot over the bar. The Ivorian did record Swansea’s first effort on target, but it was injury time and he is yet to find the net since his return to Wales while Tammy Abraham, scorer of 57% of their goals this season, was first starved of service and then taken off on a stretcher.

Burnley came closer to another goal, with James Tarkowski denied a third when he was deemed offside. It came from a corner. Their set-pieces remain a strength while Swansea’s, ineffectual since Sigurdsson’s sale, represent another problem area. The travelling supporters directed the blame at the powerbrokers, calling for the chairman, Huw Jenkins, to go. At least, Kaplan may reflect, they were not focusing on him.

Guardian