Burnley 0-0 West Ham 
By Adam Millington
at Turf Moor

BURNLEY held high-flying West Ham to a draw at Turf Moor as they edged slightly closer to dragging themselves out of the Premier League’s relegation zone.

This proved to be the utter antithesis of a footballing spectacle, each side playing football which would be as much at home in the 1970s as it would today.

The teams were star-studded, but this game could just as easily have been a League Two clash.

Irons boss David Moyes will likely feel annoyed by his side’s lack of threat in front of goal, and their inability to take advantage of what could be a crucial game in hand in their race to beat Manchester United to Champions League qualification.

The Scotsman had rested a number of players for their midweek clash with Dinamo Zagreb in the Europa League, but he made 11 changes to field a full-strength side on this afternoon.

If sports viewers were in search of drama, then they would have been far better off staying home and watching the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, rather than attending this.

It only takes a single word to sum up the first-half performances of both teams: lacklustre.

Burnley, perhaps surprisingly, were actually the more dominant of the two.

They held the majority of the ball and seemed to create more chances, but they were severely lacking in front of goal and couldn’t transform any of those chances into anything which even resembled a goal-scoring opportunity.

Sean Dyche favoured his usual long-ball football from the off — but it was not successful.

Perhaps the heavy winds which whistled through Turf Moor acted as a hindrance, but the poor performances of Chris Wood and Jay Rodriguez up top were just as influential.

The game was not too dissimilar for West Ham. There was evidently a more clear-cut nature to their play, but they only managed to threaten Nick Pope once when Issa Diop forced the Burnley keeper into pulling off a superb save when he directed Jarod Bowen’s corner goal-wards.

For much of the rest of their play, however, they couldn’t break down the steely Clarets defence and reduced to trying their chances from distance.

In fact, the first half’s most exciting moment came in the form of a West Ham penalty appeal.

The Irons felt Dwight McNeil had fouled Craig Dawson, but VAR official Jonathan Moss swiftly rejected their plea.

Both managers must have treated their respective sides to stern team talks at the break as they both came out visibly reinvigorated.

While the reliance on playing much of their football in the air still remained, the players’ levels of effort had clearly improved.

It was Moyes’s men who most clearly displayed this, and they soon began knocking on the door.

With Declan Rice pushing further forwards and more passes being completed, Pope once again was the only person able to stop the Irons when he reacted quickly to parry away a goal-bound header from Said Benrahma.

Burnley, on the other hand, were mostly unremarkable. Despite picking up what they will likely regard as a good point against Europa League-standard opposition, they couldn’t muster a single shot and have now failed to score in their past three games.

Rice thundered an effort against the bar, Jay Rodriguez was inches away from tapping into the back of the net.

As the minutes went on, it felt increasingly likely that there was some sort of curse over this game which meant neither team could enact the moment they needed to.

The Premier League is heralded for its ability to produce some of sport’s greatest moments — but this afternoon proved that it has the propensity to be just as mediocre as any other event. 

Going to Turf Moor feels like a trip back in time, walking to a football ground through terraced streets alongside stereotype-fulfilling, flat cap-donning Lancastrians.

Sitting in the James Hargreaves stand, it is just as easy to get yourself caught up gazing over the remnants of the old mill town which adorn the rolling hills as it is to watch the game.

And sometimes — just as it did today — even the football can get in on that time-travelling act.