A double from Richarlison – including a stunning bicycle kick – gave us a dream start to the new Premier League season as Head Coach Thomas Frank opened with a convincing 3-0 victory over Burnley on Saturday afternoon.
The Brazilian forward, whose Spurs career has been blighted by injuries, looked fresh and sharp leading the line at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, opening the scoring with a smart finish in the first half before producing a moment of pure magic to make it 2-0 after the break.
Burnley, managed by former Spur Scott Parker and featuring ex-players Kyle Walker and Marcus Edwards, had half-chances at 1-0 but couldn’t make them count and instead, we bossed the second period with our Bilbao hero Brennan Johnson wrapping up the points with our third.
The game saw home debuts for new signings Mohammed Kudus – impressive again from the start – and Joao Palhinha, who came off the bench late on, and continued our fine sequence of results in August – that’s now 14 Premier League matches unbeaten during the month since 2019.
Looking for a fast start against a Burnley side which never conceded more than once in all 46 Championship matches last season, Lucas Bergvall brought a close-range save out of Martin Dubravka just 26 seconds into the game! There was a significant moment in the fourth minute as a new Premier League rule was implemented for the first time in the competition’s history. Dubravka gathered a cross comfortably but then held onto the ball for longer than the permitted eight seconds – the new law introduced this season – and referee Michael Oliver penalised him, awarding a corner to us. Unfortunately it came to nothing but six minutes later we were ahead. Burnley couldn’t clear their lines and Kudus skipped away from Josh Cullen before cutting back a cross which Richarlison met with a crisp half volley into the bottom corner.
The Clarets created a number of half chances as they came back into the contest well. Jaidon Anthony headed over, Oliver Sonne was high and wide with a volley, Josh Laurent hit an effort straight at Guglielmo Vicario and Lyle Foster’s shot on the run was deflected away for a corner by Cristian Romero, after the skipper had given the ball away. From the set-piece, Vicario saved Maxine Esteve’s header.
There were some decent combinations in our build-up play as we got into some good attacking areas, Djed Spence firing over the bar at the end of one of them while, at the other end, Laurent’s effort was pushed over by Vicario and we went in with a narrow advantage at the interval. In similar fashion to the first half, we were quickly out of the blocks at the start of the second period, with Micky van de Ven heading a Kudus corner just over the bar. Richarlison then had two efforts blocked, the second a smart save from Dubravka with his legs. Back came Burnley though with two good chances. The first came from a long Walker diagonal out to Anthony who controlled and set up Hannibal but a combination of van de Ven and Pape Matar Sarr kept him out before Vicario saved Anthony’s effort after he worked a yard of space in the box.
But a glorious goal saw us double our lead on the hour mark. Kudus did so well down the right, whipping in another cross and this time Richarlison produced a moment of genius to scissor kick the ball like a rocket into the back of the net. It was one of those goals that had the crowd applauding every replay shown on the big screens!
Six minutes later it was 3-0 after Richarlison held the ball up well on half-way, Sarr took over and threaded a perfect pass for Johnson to run on to and slip the ball beyond Dubravka and in. Moments later, Burnley substitute Lesley Ugochukwu blazed over from the edge of the area when he probably should have done better, while our own sub, Dominic Solanke spun and shot just wide shortly after replacing star of the show Richarlison. A great start to the season!