Burnley come from behind to mark Sean Dyche’s 250th game with win over Everton

Posted Saturday, March 03, 2018 by PA

Burnley made history in Sean Dyche’s 250th game in charge by coming from behind to beat Everton 2-1 at Turf Moor.

The result, which ended a 12-game winless run for the Clarets, marked the first time Burnley have won a Premier League match after conceding the first goal, and took them to the 40-point mark.

The opener came from Cenk Tosun, who responded to manager Sam Allardyce’s claims he was struggling to adapt to English football because of the weather by netting his first goal on the coldest weekend of the season.

Jordan Pickford kept Everton in front with three excellent saves in front of England manager Gareth Southgate but Ashley Barnes finally beat him in the 56th minute and Chris Wood marked his return from injury by heading in the winner 10 minutes from time.

Burnley complete a second-half comeback for their first win in 12 #PL matches#BUREVE pic.twitter.com/q5mwtGFQis
— Premier League (@premierleague) March 3, 2018

Everton’s misery was complete when Ashley Williams was shown a straight red card in the 86th minute for flinging an arm into the throat of Barnes, and the Toffees slumped to a sixth consecutive away defeat.

Burnley welcomed back defender James Tarkowski after more than a month out while Seamus Coleman returned from injury to make his 250th appearance for Everton but Wayne Rooney had to settle for a place on the bench.

After a tentative beginning, the game opened out. Theo Walcott should have done better following fine work from Gylfi Sigurdsson but could only scoop a shot well over the bar while, at the other end, Pickford stuck out a vital hand to divert Johann Berg Gudmunsson’s wicked cross-shot away from Barnes.

Burnley come from behind to mark Sean Dyche’s 250th game with win over Everton — Cenk Tosun’s goal was his first since joining Everton in January (Dave Thompson/PA)

Then, with 20 minutes gone, Everton found the breakthrough. Walcott’s cross from the right was flicked on by Coleman and Tosun found himself all alone to head past Nick Pope.

Burnley had dominated possession and set about trying to find an equaliser. After Gudmundsson saw a goal-bound shot blocked, Pickford had to be at his best to claw away a header from Barnes.

Walcott was again unable to match good build-up play with a finish as he then poked a shot weakly at Pope.

Everton looked very dangerous in attack but they were having to do a lot of defending and Burnley probably should have equalised in the 40th minute but they could not make the most of an excellent free-kick from the lively Gudmundsson.

Dyche switched to 4-4-2 for the second half, bringing on Wood for his first appearance since sustaining a knee injury in December in place of Jeff Hendrick.

The Clarets immediately went on the offensive but could not find a way past Pickford, who pushed former Everton man Lennon’s shot behind before reacting quickly to keep out Ben Mee’s header from the corner.

The key to beating Pickford turned out to be a precision through ball from the right from Matthew Lowton that took out the entire Everton defence. Pickford chose to stay on his line and Barnes made him pay with a thumping finish.

Allardyce sent on Rooney for Tom Davies but the momentum remained with Burnley and, faced with the same situation after Lowton played in Barnes, Pickford came off his line to block.

Rooney gradually began to exert his influence as Everton started to have more possession and a spell of real dominance ended with Sigurdsson shooting wide when he probably should have scored.

That miss looked very costly when, moments later, Burnley netted the winner. Pickford felt he was fouled but referee Christopher Kavanagh saw nothing wrong as Wood headed in Gudmundsson’s corner virtually from on the line.

Allardyce reacted by sending on Yannick Bolasie for Sigurdsson to boos from the Everton fans. The Toffees threw everything at Burnley in the closing stages but Williams’ red card rather summed things up.