7 Ups & 5 Downs From Premier League 2019/20 Opening Weekend

Ups...

7. Burnley Have Their Best Opening Day In Over 50 Years

As each season comes and goes, Sean Dyche quietly goes about his business as Burnley continue to impress on a relatively shoestring budget.

Dyche’s Burnley may not have the glitz and glamour of some of their Premier League counterparts, but there’s something remarkable about the job the former centre-half has done in the Burnley dugout in his near-seven years at Turf Moor.

With two goals from Ashley Barnes and a classy left-footed finish from Joey Berg Gudmundsson, Burnley strolled to a 3-0 opening weekend win over Southampton.

Ralph Hasenhuttl's Saints have been earmarked as a potential top half team this season, yet Burnley barely broke a sweat as they romped to a fantastic win.

So often, Burnley’s successes have been built on a solid backline built around mainstays such as Ben Mee and James Tarkowski – which is why Burnley fans will have been even more impressed with the manner of this first victory of the season.

For the stats fans out there, this is the first time since 1966 that Burnley won their opening game of the season by a margin or three goals or more.

Advertisement
In this post: 
Daniel James
 
First Posted On: 
Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.