Perhaps it was inevitable that a game broadcast by Sky Sports Box Office would throw up the Premier League’s first goalless draw this season.. The match, available to watch on a pay-per-view channel, may have failed to live up to its teatime billing but Nick Pope made a string of superb saves to prevent West Brom from earning their first win of the season and help Burnley stop the rot and claim their first point of the campaign. Karlan Grant also had a debut goal disallowed after straying offside.
This was not a blockbuster but Slaven Bilic was reasonably chirpy afterwards, encouraged by the way his side put their stamp on the game after persisting with a three-man midfield, handing the Chelsea loanee Conor Gallagher his Premier League debut and Grant his first start since a protracted £15m move. But having leaked goals – West Brom had conceded 13 in their first four matches – it was at the other end where Bilic made wholesale changes, with the wily 36-year-old Branislav Ivanovic partnering Ahmed Hegazi in defence. If supporters, like Bilic, were heartened by a much-improved performance, West Brom’s next two matches, trips to Brighton and then Fulham, being on consecutive Mondays and both £14.95 via PPV represents a kick in the teeth. “I think football should be affordable,” Bilic said. “I always used to say football is not polo, football is not golf, football is sport for the masses. It is a working-class sport and it should be affordable to everybody.”
When it comes to finances, Burnley’s board have a reputation for being frugal and while Sean Dyche, whose only major close-season signing was a £1.5m deal for Dale Stephens, who fell down the pecking order at Brighton, was unable to call on new recruits, his primary threat was again the superb Dwight McNeil, a direct runner who kept the West Brom defence on their toes. He showed great feet to jink away from Jake Livermore on halfway but his delicious ball across the six-yard box went unanswered. Nevertheless Dyche struck a similarly upbeat tone. “We’re beginning to look back to where we want to be,” the Burnley manager said. “We’ll get on with the challenge.”
Bilic bemoaned his side’s lack of aggression last time out – he reminded his players they are not at school but in the thick of an unforgiving competition – but the West Brom manager will have been satisfied with their application here. Grant was a livewire and, had the former Huddersfield striker not hesitated when threaded through by Matheus Pereira – he appeared to fear the offside flag – he would have got a cleaner shot away. Grant agonised on the brink of half-time, when the assistant referee did raise the flag after the striker nodded in Grady Diangana’s cross. ”He put a smile on my face,” Bilic said of Grant. “He’ll be extremely important and that’s why we wanted him.”
Burnley had Pope to thank for a flurry of fine saves approaching the hour mark. Diangana corkscrewed away from Johann Berg Gudmundsson at the byline before bending a right-footed shot towards the far corner, which Pope pushed to safety. But a goalmouth scrambled ensued, culminating in Ivanovic blasting the ball at the towering James Tarkowski before Pereira took aim when the ball pinballed in his favour. Pope clawed Pereira’s shot to safety and then clambered on to the ball after Ivanovic attempted to reach the rebound.
That hairy episode seemed to bring the best out of Burnley, who twice went close at the other end. First Chris Wood, the former West Brom striker, sent a header thumping against the crossbar after meeting a wonderful first-time cross by Ashley Westwood and then Sam Johnstone tried to outdo Pope, flying to his right to prevent Ashley Barnes’s header from finding the top corner. An offside Wood then headed the rebound against the woodwork, prompting the striker to roar in frustration. “It will come, it will come,” Pope urged from the opposite end. But that elusive goal never did arrive.