Burnley v Manchester City: Premier League – live!

18 min Otamendi is warned by the referee Jon Moss after a foul on Wood. He looks a wee bit rattled.

17 min Bardsley plays a speculative ball over the top for Wood, who is just beaten to it by Ederson. Good goalkeeping.

17 min It’s been a pretty open start to the game. Burnley look like they can cause City problems, which hasn’t always been the case in this fixture.

15 min Bernardo Silva is booked for a tactical foul on McNeil.

12 min De Bruyne surges forward from the halfway line, moves the ball away from Mee and hits a low left-footed shot from 25 yards. It’s too close to Pope, who makes a comfortable save.

11 min “So,” says Cromwell49, “Bournemouth game not worthy of minute-by-minute coverage, eh?”

You haven’t read the preamble, have you? Sometimes I seriously doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

10 min Bernardo Silva cuts infield and hits a 20-yard shot that is blocked.

9 min A long ball forward gives Wood the chance to manhandle Otamendi, who ends up on all fours in the City penalty area. Nothing comes of it but I doubt Otamendi will be relishing the next hoof forward.

8 min “Where’s Hendrick playing, Rob?” asks Paul Neilan. He’s in the Pereira role, as a kind of defensive No10.

7 min: JESUS HAS A GOAL DISALLOWED! He was offside. It would have been a lovely goal, mind. De Bruyne drove the corner to the edge of the box, where Angelino belted a volley towards goal. It was slightly off target and came to Jesus, who instinctively flicked the ball behind his standing leg and into the net. He was, alas, a long way offside.

6 min Walker’s cross deflects off Pieters and onto the roof o fthe net. Pope had it covered but it’s a corner for City, the first of the match…

4 min Jesus scoots into the area on the left, turns back inside Mee and is tackled by Tarkowski. No matter: he was offside.

2 min City deal slightly uncomfortably with a couple of long punts forward.

1 min Peep peep! Burnley, in claret and blue, kick off from left to right. City are in their black change strip.

The players emerge from the tunnel. It’s a nice December night in Burnley. A little brisk. Burnley’s walk-on music is Wake Up by Arcade Fire, a gesture which makes the world a marginally better place.

It’s almost time for the actual football to start. Shame, really, I was enjoying the build-up.

“Hi Rob,” says Gary Naylor. “For Amazon’s first match, top left of the screen says ‘Cry Bou’ – which accurately sums up Mamadou Sakho’s night.”

In case you’re not a subscriber, Sakho has been sent off for an old-fashioned, thigh-high lunge at Adam Smith. You can follow that match, sort of, here.

“Evening Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “I think today, Tuesday 3 December 2019, will be remembered as the day civilisation reached its peak. Streaming live football through an online global website, whilst at the same time buying a voice controlled smart device that enables me to buy more content from said retailer, and having it delivered by a drone at half time while putting up Christmas decorations and emailing the OBO through thought alone. Herbert Chapman and Stan Cullis would have been proud, don’t you think?”

Let me just ask my smart assistant, Cyril, what I should think.

Ashley Barnes is only fit enough for the bench because of a groin problem, so Burnley have switched from 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1.

Burnley (4-2-3-1) Pope; Bardsley, Tarkowski, Mee, Pieters; Cork, Drinkwater; Lennon, Hendrick, McNeil; Wood.
Substitutes: Hart, Lowton, Gibson, Brady, Barnes, Rodriguez, Vydra.

Manchester City (4-3-3) Ederson; Walker, Otamendi, Fernandinho, Angelino; De Bruyne, Rodri, D Silva; B Silva, Jesus, Sterling.
Substitutes: Bravo, Stones, Mendy, Joao Cancelo, Garcia, Mahrez, Foden.

Referee Jon Moss.

Good evening and welcome to a brand new episode of Black Mirror. This one has a cracking synopsis: an American tech giant gets its paws on England’s most popular sport, and all manner of dystopian larks ensue. Well, possibly. We can only surmise the long-term impact of Amazon’s Premier League landgrab but it does feel like 3 December 2019 will eventually sit alongside 16 August 1992 as a landmark in TV coverage of football.

For now, the only thing we can say with certainty is that Amazon Prime will be showing 10 live Premier League matches across the next three evenings. Their all-streaming, all-dancing coverage begins with two games tonight: Crystal Palace v Bournemouth and Burnley v Manchester City. The Guardian pockets, alas, are not quite as chasmic as Jeff Bezos’s, so you’re stuck with just one MBM for the match at Turf Moor.

Manchester City start the match 11 points behind Liverpool, and with a simple edict: to stop playing silly buggers. Pep Guardiola has had the face on for much of the season, and that seems to have transmitted to his players.

City have already dropped 13 points in 14 games, which is almost as many as in each of the last two seasons (14 in 2017-18, 16 in 2018-19). If they are not careful, their title defence will be over before they return to Amazon Prime on 27 December.

Kick off is at 8.15pm, buffering permitting.