At around this time of the season we’re more accustomed to playing the likes of Barcelona on a Wednesday night but that’s hopefully something we’ll get back to next season – for now, it’s Burnley.
Oh well, at least the colours are similar.
Whilst Burnley might currently be languishing just above the relegation zone, they’ve not been pushovers by any means this season and have lost by the odd goal on a number of occasions and held us to a 0-0 draw when we played them at their place towards the start of the season.
However, I think it’s fair to say that this is the stage of the season when those clubs with the lesser strength in depth can really start to struggle and just one win against fellow strugglers QPR since the turn of the year suggests that this could be the case with Burnley.
Our defeat against Southampton here the other week aside, our own form has been very good of late and that remains our only defeat in fourteen Premier League matches.
The draw over the weekend against West Ham highlighted the problems we’ve been experiencing in front of goal for a lot of this season.
So far, Falcao looks nothing like a £50 million player and I do think that he might be struggling to adapt to the more physical nature of the Premier League and he did seem to get knocked over quite easily against West Ham. No doubt in Spain he’d have been awarded a dozen free kicks but here in England, it’s all part and parcel of the game.
Of course, it might all be a master plan by LvG to get Falcao on the cheap at the end of the season because I do believe that he will be a much better player next season and could be worth a punt at a significantly reduced price.
RvP continues to blow mostly cold and the odd flash of quality aside, looks nothing like the player who arrived here and scored every time he got the ball a couple of seasons ago.
Wayne Rooney appears to be being used in every position but those where he’s likely to score goals and I do think that that’s been to our detriment.
James Wilson hasn’t disappointed when used but LvG’s reluctance to put too heavy a burden on his young shoulders is perhaps understandable.
Fortunately, we now have something we haven’t really had for a number of seasons and that is midfielders who can score and on several occasions this season, they have pulled something out of the bag for us when the strikers have been faltering – as evidenced by Daley Blind’s last gasp equaliser over the weekend.
I think we’re going to need something similar tonight as I cannot see us thrashing Burnley and although a 2-0 scoreline isn’t out of the question, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a closer scoreline.