10 Things We Learned From The English Premier League Football Weekend (30 Sept - 1 Oct 2017)
2. Double Dutch In The Sack Race?
It's half-tempting to delay publishing this, given how quickly Ronald Koeman is teetering to the sack. According to the Guardian, club majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri has handed the Dutchman the dreaded 'vote of confidence'. The last time that happened, his fellow countryman Frank de Boer was handed his P45.
Farhad in his reasoning referred to this as the club's only "unexpected defeat" - which really does Burnley a major disservice. Sean Dyche has spent a fraction of the fortune allocated to Koeman, and his side, scaling sixth after a well-earned win, showed so much more in terms of tactics and spirit than Everton did here. Koeman fiddled with the system and the personnel, but the end result was the same familiar story. They were as toothless as an anteater, and just as slow, constantly building patient and pointless phases of play with sideways passes, resulting in tame, central long-range efforts. That is when Burnley allowed them to pull the trigger; defensively, there swarmed the Everton front line like a rash. Only Dominic Calvert-Lewin posed anything resembling a threat.
When they eventually grounded the ball, Burnley showed Everton how to truly outwit a defence; they stretched and dizzied them by getting in behind before pulling the ball back into the space and pinging it into the net.