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Virgil van Dijk might be tasked with thwarting the enormous Wout Weghorst this weekend, as Burnley followers dream of a shock win over Liverpool.
The Reds gained 2-0 at house to Leicester on Thursday night, holding the stress on Premier League leaders Man City.
Subsequent up is the weekend journey to Sean Dyche’s Burnley, who lastly seem like they might fail to stave off the specter of relegation.
The Clarets sit backside of the desk going into Sunday’s sport, albeit with two video games in hand, however they may a minimum of be buoyed by their 1-1 draw at house to Man United in midweek.
Forward of the sport, we spoke to Matt from the No Might By no means podcast (@NoNayNever) to get the lowdown on Burnley‘s relegation battle, Liverpool’s high quality and a few key match-ups.
How do you assess Burnley’s season up to now?
Quick reply – worrying. It’s actually not been straightforward to observe at instances.
We’ve dropped factors from being forward towards groups we’re able to beating and never been in a position to rating towards direct relegation rivals.
That’s relegation type and lots of Clarets are already resigned to our time within the Premier League lastly coming to an finish.
Regardless of the brand new homeowners spending and making an attempt to take a position additional within the squad, under-investment over the previous three years has lastly caught up with us.
Does your intestine feeling say you’ll beat the drop?
It’s actually difficult to name on the minute with everybody having performed totally different quantities of matches.
With Norwich drawing on Wednesday evening, successful our video games in hand would carry us out of the relegation zone, which supplies you hope that we’re at the moment not relying straight on others dropping factors.
Having solely managed one league win since Might 10 after we secured one other high flight season, you could be forgiven for not seeing us instantly discovering a bunch of wins to drag off the nice escape, although.
The distinction might properly be Wout Weghorst, mixed with Maxwel Cornet and Jay Rodriguez.
After an underwhelming debut towards Watford, large Wout impressed within the second half towards Man United, forcing a high save out of David De Gea and offering an help for ‘Jay Rod’, which included a flip that despatched Harry Maguire for a bovril and pie.
We’ve lacked objectives this season to transform many attracts into wins – if Weghorst can begin discovering the online, the escape might nonetheless be on.
Who’ve been Burnley’s three greatest gamers this season?
At the moment forward by a mile is Cornet.
I can’t bear in mind the final time a participant had such an influence on the group and followers so rapidly after becoming a member of, scoring a number of Purpose of the Season contenders towards Leicester, Palace and Leeds, earlier than heading off to function briefly for the Ivory Coast on the Africa Cup of Nations.
He has appeared just a little rusty since returning, however ought to hopefully present some much-needed creativity for the second half of the season.
Following behind him needs to be our central defensive partnership of James Tarkowski and Ben Mee.
Regardless of a number of uncharacteristic particular person errors by ‘Tarky’ and the fixed circulation of rumours of the place he’ll inevitably transfer to this summer time, he has confirmed again and again that he’s a category act and can improve whichever membership wins the race for his signature on a free in the summertime.
Mee is as constant as ever, just lately chalking up 10 years on the membership and is a real chief on and off the pitch.
Regardless of being out of contract in the summertime, there appears to be no cause why he gained’t signal on once more to see out his profession right here.
Which people have struggled?
In case you had requested me a month in the past I’d have talked about Chris Wooden, however he’s not our concern.
Watching Newcastle followers tweet their frustration at what £25 million has received them is a brand new favorite matchday distraction for Burnley followers.
So consideration turns to our midfield and particularly younger Dwight McNeil, who till the arrival of Cornet and in his absence, was our predominant inventive outlet as soon as extra.
That continues to be an enormous weight for his slight body and comparatively younger head to hold and he has struggled to ship the balls that Wooden thrived off in earlier seasons.
McNeil has additionally been requested to do extra defensive work and has the stats to again up that he has been doing his justifiable share to assist out Charlie Taylor and Erik Pieters, however this then means he’s not additional up the sector to tie full-backs in knots.
Additionally struggling to impress and excite the followers this season are our midfield quartet, particularly Ashley Westwood and Josh Brownhill, whose makes an attempt to excessive press groups has left our defence uncovered.
Opponents have taken benefit of it, resulting in the dropped factors talked about earlier.
Turning our consideration to Liverpool, how do you assess their title hopes?
Regardless of having the identical variety of defeats as Man City, it appears the Mancunians are in ruthless mode once more this season and it’s clearly now their title to lose.
Twelve factors appears a bridge too far, however win your video games in hand, beat Metropolis within the reverse fixture and that instantly turns into a three-point hole, so possibly there’s life within the title race but.
Other than Salah, which Reds participant would you most wish to see at Burnley?
Contemplating our weakest space in the intervening time is our midfield, I think about James Milner or Jordan Henderson would make superb Sean Dyche gamers with a excessive work charge, professionalism and a smattering of high quality.
The place do you see the important thing battles going down on Sunday?
It will likely be attention-grabbing to see how Weghorst will get on towards Virgil van Dijk, each within the air and on the bottom.
If Cornet recovers from the cramps he went off with towards United, then his battle with Andy Robertson ought to show intriguing.
In the meantime, McNeil at all times appears to relish his duels with Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Lastly, what’s your prediction?
This fairly merely is dependent upon which Burnley flip up. There have been a number of matches this season that we thought had been turning factors, just for the poor performances to reoccur.
Tuesday evening’s second half felt prefer it might be THE turning level, and if that Burnley present up then we might see a decent contest that might be determined by a single purpose.
With Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane again on the town, nonetheless, you may show to be too sturdy for us as soon as once more.
My coronary heart says 1-0 to Burnley, my head says 3-1 to Liverpool.
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