There’s nothing original in the idea that Arsenal might be vulnerable on the back of their north London derby exploits last weekend. The queue of pundits lining up to tell us "they play Burnley away next, and that’s just the sort of game…" is around the block. That alone should make us wary of ploughing headlong into the Clarets. If anything, it’s too obvious.
So let’s try and detach ourselves from the narrative for a moment. The Gunners know the world is waiting for them to slip up at Turf Moor, ready to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it. It’s a spotlight that should be bright enough to ensure complacency isn’t an issue, because complacency by its very nature stems from a lack of self-awareness.
But complacency isn’t the only potential stumbling block for Arsene Wenger’s men here. Burnley have evidently raised the bar again this season, just as they have done continuously throughout their five years under Sean Dyche. The Lancashire side are a model of slight-edge thinking, the epitome of steady incremental progression.
As such, it would be unwise to look at their underlying numbers at this stage and blindly assume they have a humble mean to regress to. There’s probably never been a time under Dyche when Burnley haven’t outperformed averages. And with every surge of good fortune they experience on the frontline, the rest of the battalion shuffle their mean forward from the rear.
Our appreciation of tactics and analytics in recent years has advanced so much that we believe we can explain almost everything, so we don’t always take kindly to teams who enjoy success in the realm of our blind spots. If Burnley are a triumph of anything, it’s culture; the culture of working hard and religiously to a detailed, coherent (unknown) methodology.
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In this era of instant gratification, it’s rare that we see a football club follow the same principles day in, day out, for five years. But maybe this is what the aggregation of marginal gains over 1,852 days looks like - plain old luck, a team that consistently gets more bang for its buck. What was it Gary Player said again?
So perhaps we’re fast approaching the point where the Clarets should be taken seriously in games of this nature. Not just in the underdog, raise-their-game-with-nothing-to-lose sense, but from a broader perspective. Maybe it’s time to acknowledge that Burnley are no longer making up the numbers and might now be respected as lively runners for a top-half finish.
This game isn’t just about Arsenal, and how Arsenal go about it. If they get beat, it might not be because they didn’t turn up. It might be because Burnley lost Andre Gray and Michael Keane in the summer and responded by adding strength in depth and more variety to their game. They have evolved again, they look after the ball better and can hurt teams in different ways.
Contrary to stereotypes, Wenger has beaten Dyche in each of their previous five meetings, but whether that’s a psychological advantage or a body of evidence for Dyche to push through yet another barrier with typical perseverance is a matter of intrigue. With odds of 11/2 available on the home win, it’s worth taking a chance on the Clarets.
One final point: it’s worth separating the contribution of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez from the overall performance of Arsenal. Those two men hold the key to the Gunners taking this game by the scruff of the neck, rendering Burnley’s input irrelevant. But questions have to be asked about when they are likely to be motivated by their personal interests, and when they are not.
Both players were excellent against Tottenham, but that was a high-profile fixture in front of a global television audience. It was a timely reminder, as they run down their contracts, of their ability to effect the outcome of matches on the biggest stage but generating the same level of desire for a game of this nature is a different matter entirely.
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1pt Burnley to beat Arsenal at 11/2
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