Jay Rodriguez the light in a storm to give Burnley win at Bournemouth

This was the kind of match where delight in victory was in inverse proportion to the quality of the football. Fiercely contested amid a torrential winter storm, the game was almost totally devoid of anything identifiable as attacking quality, never mind entertainment.

But the visitors won it in the 89th minute with a decisive header at the back post from Jay Rodriguez. It was dig-in, grind-out Premier League football in excelsis and it seemed entirely appropriate when Burnley players whipped their tops off at the final whistle to celebrate.

“It was fading away to an ugly 0-0 draw, but then we nick it,” said Sean Dyche of his 50th top-flight win as a manager. “We managed to find a moment, a moment of quality from a performance where we weren’t finding it. Ugly wins are as valuable as anything in this division and over a season they’re all valid.”

Eddie Howe was of a similar mind about the quality of the match. “There were a lot of aerial balls, it was a really scrappy game,” he said. “That’s always how these games go against Burnley, though there’s no criticism there. We had a lot of the ball but didn’t do enough with it.”

Howe was clearly disappointed in the result but also frustrated that Burnley had negated his team through such uncomplicated means. If the ball was less than two feet off the ground, Bournemouth had the best of it. If it was more than two feet off the ground, Burnley were in charge. As the match progressed the play drifted higher and higher.

That this should prove an uninspiring match will not have come as a surprise to many. These are two teams who are scratching around for form, who had brought an end to lengthy losing streaks only last weekend and who would prize stability over adventure at this point in time. They were also playing in abysmal conditions, with the rain blasting around all four corners of a low, open ground.

So it was that the opening 45 minutes failed to offer a single shot on target. There were barely any shots off target, for that matter, with Jefferson Lerma’s sliced drive from range and Chris Wood’s scuffed cross-shot the only contenders. Howe took action after half-time, replacing Lewis Cook with Callum Wilson.

Wilson was on the bench after recovering from injury but immediately offered the hosts more options, with Joshua King also looking more comfortable out wide. But still, the hosts ended the game without an effort directly on goal and have now won only two of their last 10 matches, scoring six goals in the process.

The solitary effort that did hit the target was the telling one. Burnley have scored only three times in their past five fixtures, but two have been winning goals, as Rodriguez’s strike was here. His header was expert, rising above two defenders to power the ball back across goal and inside Aaron Ramsdale’s near post. But the stand-up cross from Ashley Westwood was spot on too, and made possible by a clever layoff from Aaron Lennon.

One other element worth noting from this match was a worrying chain of head injuries. Ryan Fraser was clocked by James Tarkowski’s arm after the defender – fairly – won a charging header, while Simon Francis required stitches after stooping for a header and getting Ashley Barnes’s boot in his head.

It was not only one way either, with Philip Billing seemingly throwing his elbow at Barnes’s head in the second half. None of these challenges resulted in a player being disciplined, with VAR inspecting the Billing incident but adjudging it not worthy of a red card.

source: theguardian.com