Wout Weghorst and a windy south coast culminates in a convincing three points for Burnley.
The visitors, who climb off the bottom with the win, will come away full of confidence as they were good value for three points. It takes them up to 18th in the league, five points behind in form Newcastle, but with two games in hand over the Magpies. Graham Potter claimed Burnley were “a better version of themselves” as he vindicated their value for the win.
Goals from Weghorst, Josh Brownhill and Aaron Lennon saw off a fairly limp Brighton, who lacked any real threat up front. Sean Dyche was full of praise for his players, stating that only their second win of the season “has been coming”. “I’m pleased for the players because they’ve stayed clear minded and clear thinking about what we have to do to win games.”
Dyche will be hoping deadline day signing, Weghorst, continues his debut season in a similar vein to today. The 6’6, £12 million man from Wolfsburg continuously caused problems for a Brighton defence who were without Lewis Dunk and Adam Wesbter. Potter described the absence of his defensive partnership as “not ideal” but insisted to “take nothing away from Burnley”.
It was the Dutch who opened the scoring for Burnley on the twenty minute mark with a well worked goal. Some good work from Aaron Lennon and Conor Roberts down the right-hand side resulted in Roberts finding space to pick out Weghorst in the box, who hit home his first Premier League goal.
The goal came after a fairly dominant opening period for Burnley, Potter admitted that his side “didn’t look up for it” from the first whistle.
It’s a second loss on the bounce for Graham Potters side, after going unbeaten in eight before their loss at Old Trafford on Tuesday. Potter was frank about his sides level today, stating that “we weren’t at the required level for a match in this league”.
Burnley utilised the treacherous weather to their advantage. A long ball, influenced by the wind, up to Weghorst was a common theme of Burnleys attacks. Their second came as a result of Duffy misreading the balls flight path, as Weghorst neatly knocked it down to Brownhill who found a yard to get away a shot which took a few deflections on the way to finding Burnley’s second just before half time.
Potter described Brightons performance as “one of the worst I’ve had since I’ve been here”. Lennons goal encapsulated Burnley’s dominance, some bullish work from Jay Rodriguez and an emphatic finish from the veteran off the bar articulated Burnley’s control throughout the game.
Burnley host Spurs on Wednesday as they look to kick on to stay in the division.
