Burnley looking much improved ahead of Old Trafford trip next week

Our write-up of the Gameweek 23 fixtures concludes with this look back at the unexpected stalemate at Vicarage Road as Watford played out their first goalless draw of the season against Burnley.

We round up the main Fantasy talking points, relevant manager quotes and headline injury updates from the match in question in our Scout Notes article below.

Watford 0-0 Burnley

After talking up the goal-scoring (and goal-conceding) prospects of Watford in our Digest last week, it was almost inevitable that the Hornets would register their first 0-0 league draw since April 2018 against a Burnley side that had conceded the second-highest number of goals, big chances and shots on target going into Gameweek 23.

Tom Heaton (£4.8m) and Ben Foster (£4.5m) had decent games between the posts for their respective sides but this was a game low on quality and particularly underwhelming from a Watford perspective, with the Hornets left clinging on for a point as the visitors exerted pressure after the break.

Javi Gracia’s side had decent openings at either end of the first half, with Heaton called upon to make instinctive saves to keep out close-range efforts from Troy Deeney (£6.0m) and Gerard Deulofeu (£5.5m).

Ken Sema (£4.6m) also had an effort blocked early in the game, meanwhile.

This was not the first one-on-one opportunity that Deulofeu has spurned in recent weeks but Gracia defended the “out of position” FPL midfielder, who was again up front for the Hornets, after full-time:

It’s true in the beginning we had a clear chance with Gerard and then with Sema and with Troy. We created two or three more chances, but it wasn’t enough to score. It was an equal game, very close.

I don’t remember the other [chances Deulofeu had] but with this one, his last touch was a little bit long and in that moment the keeper is very close and it closes his chances. I think he is going to score other chances.

A Tom Cleverley (£5.0m) effort from distance was the only Watford shot that muddied Heaton’s gloves in the second half and it was fairly obvious that Abdoulaye Doucoure (£5.9m) was missed in central midfield, with Cleverley deputising and not offering the same drive as his influential team-mate.

Gracia said:

I don’t like to speak about players I don’t have in that moment. There are others like Tom, like Capoue in the middle, both have played very well.

Maybe with other options, other qualities, the game could be different. All my players are important and I prefer to speak about the players who have played.

I think [Doucoure] is going to be my player until the end of the season. I don’t know anything about that changing.

Doucoure and Craig Cathcart (£4.5m) missed out with minor injuries but Gracia expects the pair to be available for Gameweek 24.

The Watford head coach said:

Craig Cathcart and Doucoure both felt pain in the last training and they weren’t available for today, but I think they have minor problems and for the next game I’m sure they will be ready.

Kiko Femenia (£4.2m) was added to Watford’s injury list, however, having been substituted in the second half – but not before banking a clean sheet and maximum bonus.

Speaking of his injured right-back, Gracia said:

Kiko felt something and I think he’ll have to rest some days.

Sean Dyche might have felt a point would have been a good result before kick-off but the Burnley manager was left fuming at full-time after Chris Wood (£6.2m) was denied what looked like a legitimate winner in injury time.

Dyche said of the disallowed goal:

I didn’t think it was at the time and looking back, I don’t think it was now. I’d be surprised if the majority didn’t think it was onside.

VAR is a definite for me. I know it needs to be made better but they are two big points. We haven’t always had the right decisions go our way and we are 65 Premier League games without a penalty, which is an anomaly.

Foster had to make important, if not spectacular, saves to keep out an Ashley Barnes (£5.7m) header, a close-range Jeff Hendrick (£5.2m) effort and a Dwight McNeil (£4.4m) drive (the rebound of which was tapped in by Wood for the offside goal) but Burnley’s closest attempts bypassed the Watford custodian: Barnes firing wide from the edge of the six-yard box and McNeil hammering a volley over from close range.

Dyche rued his side’s missed opportunities:

We had three or four golden chances and it was a good performance. The energy and the edge we play with as a group is coming back but those extra two points would have been very welcome. Unfortunately, a big decision has gone against us.

They started well in the first ten minutes but we played well. Ben [Foster] is a good keeper and Tom [Heaton] has done really well, and the team is operating really well in front of him. The spine of our team is very good and we are looking a strong outfit.

Burnley are unbeaten in their last four Premier League matches and, as Dyche mentioned above, they currently look more like the side that overachieved in 2017/18 than the one that was so porous earlier in the season.

Only three top-flight clubs have allowed fewer shots on target over the last four Gameweeks, while no side outside of the “big six” has conceded fewer big chances over that period.

At the other end of the pitch, Burnley have carved out more big chances than any other Premier League side from Gameweeks 20-23.

A regular front two of Wood and Barnes and a settled backline certainly seems to have helped over the last month (the wing-back experiment in the defeat to Everton aside), while the Clarets still have Johann Berg Gudmundsson (£5.5m) and Robert Brady (£5.4m) to return from injury and suspension ahead of Gameweek 24 to further bolster their options going forward.

Performing well against West Ham, Huddersfield, Fulham and Watford is one thing, of course – a trip to Old Trafford next Tuesday will be the acid test of their new-found solidity.

Watford XI (4-4-2): Foster; Femenia (Britos 77′), Kabasele, Mariappa, Holebas; Sema (Success 56′), Cleverley, Capoue, Pereyra; Deulofeu, Deeney.

Burnley XI (4-4-2): Heaton; Bardsley, Tarkowski, Mee, Taylor; Hendrick, Cork, Westwood, McNeil; Barnes, Wood.

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