Chris Wood Is Back And Scoring Goals And Just In Time For A European Push
Chis Wood hurt his knee just before Christmas, colliding with Hugo Lloris as he strove for an equaliser in the first half of a 3-0 defeat to Tottenham. After trying and failing to run it off he was replaced by Ashley Barnes and wouldn’t play again for a couple months.
It was a tricky injury to manage and his return took a lot longer than first expected. He finally got back on the bench for a 1-1 draw with Southampton and returned to the field a week later as a half-time sub against Everton… and went on to score an 80th minute winner. Just as he got a double against West Ham in a 3-0 win seven days later, also off the bench, and then scored again in his first start since his injury, a 2-1 win over West Brom on the weekend.
Three games, three wins, four goals and an assist in 152 minutes since he came back from injury. What makes that even more incredible is that in the eleven games that he missed, including the Spurs one in which he was hurt, the Clarets didn’t win a single game. That includes an FA Cup third round dismantling by Manchester City (4-1) and losses to Crystal Palace and Swansea. Then as soon as The Woodsman comes back it’s nine points from nine, how about it?
Woody’s played 18 games in the Premier League this season, scoring eight goals. Here are the splits:
Burnley when Wooden: 18 GM | 9 W | 5 D | 4 L | 17 GF | 14 GA | 32 PTS
Burnley when Woodless: 13 GM | 3 W | 5 D | 5 L | 12 GF | 13 GA | 14 PTS
That’s, erm… rather stark. In a season where Sean Dyche has so expertly handled that long term injury to Tom Heaton and Michael Keane’s departure to Everton, as well as cleverly rotating a few impressive midfield options, it’s kinda notable that the big kiwi striker has been so influential to results. It’s not just his goals, he’s only been banging them in like Harry Kane since he came back from injury, it’s every bit as much about having that outlet up top, his link-up and hold-up play, his gravitational pull for defenders, all that stuff.
Then again, this is a team without a huge amount of depth so you can say the same for Jake Tarkowski’s impact. That dude just cracked the England team and when he’s played the Clarets have taken 41 points from 24 games and without him they’ve got 5 points from 7 games. 10 clean sheets with Tarky, only one without. He missed all of February with a groin strain and also came back for the Everton win along with Wood. Similarly both Steven Defour and Robbie Brady, two of their best creative outlets, have both been ruled out for the rest of the season, Brady just before the big win drought and Defour near the end of it. They didn’t win a game between the middle of December and the start of March… and somehow they’re still seventh on the ladder with a shot at catching Arsenal before it’s all over (second to last week of the season: Arsenal vs Burnley. Could be huge).
So timing’s been handy, no doubt about that. And Woody’s return has just happened to coincide with the best form of Ashley Barnes’ career – the chap who replaced him in the Spurs game. Not so long ago he was linked with a move to Chelsea and people laughed. Suddenly that doesn’t seem like such a stretch, he’s just scored in four straight games and his overhead kick to take the lead against West Brom was a marvel. He’s the first Burnley player to score in four straight top flight games since John Murray in 1968 (although Burnley aren’t usually in the top flight, to be fair)… but Chris Wood could join him next game.
It was Barnes’ form that meant manager Dyche had a decision to make about dropping Chris Wood straight back into the starting XI. Eventually he instead alllowed him to ease back in with a couple bench appearances. But the Clarets were 1-0 down against Everton when Wood came on and it was 0-0 vs West Ham when he was introduced. He couldn’t drop Barnes and he never subbed him off for Wood either, which paved the way for the obvious answer… just chuck them both out there.
Two-striker formations aren’t the most popular in this day and age but it ain’t like Wood and Barnes have never played together before. In fact when they were both named in the XI to play West Brom they reignited a partnership that goes back seven years to when Wood was on loan at Brighton back down in League One. A 1-1 draw with Nottingham County on the last day of the 2010-11 season. Wood was 19 and Barnes was 21. That was the previous time they started together.
Chris Wood: “I’ve known Barnesy a long time now, we played together at Brighton and we had a good partnership there, so hopefully we can keep going. I just think they don’t like playing against Barnesy. I’d hate to play against him. We all have different elements to our game, he’s a very strong-minded character and he’s fantastic in that way. It’s nice that we can hopefully cause a lot more problems between now and the end of the season. He’s still exactly the same, he hasn’t changed one bit. He’s still a brilliant lad. He’s great.”
It’d be a lie to say that the duo were flawless against West Bro, the team that gave Wood his start in English football. Wood in particular missed a couple first half opportunities: a header from a Jack Cork cross and a strike dragged wide from the edge of the box after Nkoudou had picked him out in space. But both came after Barnes’ athletic volley gave Burnley the lead in the 22nd minute.
West Brom had a good spell on either side of the half but weren’t able to level this thing and then, in the 73rd minute, Chris Wood did his usual thing. He’s always been that kind of striker, give him three chances and he might make a mess of the first pair but he’ll bury the third. Nick Pope sent a long ball forward which Wood nodded back to Jeff Hendrick. Hendrick went down under a challenge only for the ball to fall to Matt Lowton who slipped it through to Wood as the All Whites striker found some room in behind the defence. The Woodsman cut past Jonny Evans and whacked one towards goal, which was initially saved by Ben Foster. Wood followed up the miss to pump it in off his head from a metre out. Easy peasy.
Wood was replaced four minutes later and Salomon Rondon pulled one back late for the Baggies. It wasn’t enough, Burnley beat West Brom 2-1 and Alan Pardew was sacked a day later. The second manager who’s been sacked this season after losing to a Chris Wood goal following his winner against Crystal Palace that doomed Frank de Boer. Call him The Reaper. Hey but conceding after he went off means that the Barnes + Wood combo remains statistically unblemished. That’s now seven goals scored, all by either AB or CW, and none conceded in the 151 minutes they’ve shared out there in the last three games. No goals scored and two conceded in the 119 minutes which only one or neither of them have been on the field. The pattern is clear to see.
James Tarkowski: “They’re brilliant, you can see it out there with the amount of work they put in, the way they hold up the ball and the problems they’re causing, the link-up play. They’ve been terrific and they’ve got a bit of a past together from their time at Brighton. You can see that a little bit because they seem to link up well and hopefully they can keep scoring goals the way they are.”
One more time for timing now because if Chris Wood and his reunited bestie Ashley Barnes can keep this up over the final seven games then European footy is a likelihood. Manchester City have already won the League Cup but they’ve also already qualified for the Champions League so that opens up sixth place for the Europa League. Seventh will follow if any team other than Southampton wins the FA Cup. The Saints play Chelsea in a couple weeks in the semis while Manchester United play Tottenham in the other one. Safe to say that’s a good chance of happening, which means that Burnley’s three point buffer over Leicester City could just take Chris Wood back to a stage he last walked back in 2011-12 when he scored twice in six appearances for Milwall in the Europas.
The Clarets are six points clear of Everton with a game in hand, so realistically it’s them versus Leicester for seventh. Funny that, because they play in two weeks at Turf Moor. Here are the remaining fixtures for each:
Burnley: Watford (A), Leicester, Chelsea, Stoke (A), Brighton, Arsenal (A) & Bournemouth
Leicester: Newcastle, Burnley (A), Southampton, Crystal Palace (A), West Ham, Tottenham (A)
The Foxes also have a game against Arsenal to be rescheduled in there somewhere and the Gunners are far from safe on 51 points themselves. Burnley can catch them, you know. Both they and Leicester have some very winnable games to follow, largely against teams worse than them that shouldn’t be relegated. They also play each other and they also both play Arsenal.
Burnley’s game against Chelsea should be a bugger but then they beat the Blues on the opening weekend of the season and who really knows with Chelsea right now? Same deal with Arsenal, whose best bet might be the Mourinho Path to the Champions League of winning the Europas… which could end up costing them a spot in next season’s tournament. They have a two-legged tie against CSKA Moscow to juggle over the next fortnight and that’s a lot of travel. Not to mention they have to play Manchester United again.
Arsenal: CSKA (EL/H), Southampton, CSKA (EL/A), Newcastle (A), West Ham, Man United (A), Burnley, Huddersfield (A), Leicester (?/A)
Just something to keep an eye on, is all. As if you needed more reasons to watch Chris Wood while he’s doing what he’s doing right now.
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