Opinion: Burnley hit new low in Arsenal defeat in what has already been a miserable campaign

Well, for the first four minutes they showed us something. They actually started the game with some aggression, with an intensity and with a meaning to their play.

They were pressing from the front and looking to put Arsenal on the back foot. Mikel Arteta’s side could barely get out of their own half. For four whole minutes, it looked like Burnley were onto something.

But as soon as Martin Odegaard opened the scoring following Arsenal’s first venture into the Burnley half, that all dissipated in the blink of an eye.

What followed was putrid, quite frankly. Arguably the worst we’ve witnessed all season.

A miserable afternoon

You can lose 5-0 to a title challenger, it happens. It’s certainly happened enough times to Burnley over the years, usually to Manchester City, but there’s a way to lose these games and this wasn’t it.

The Clarets played with no purpose, in fact they barely laid a glove on the visitors. For their fans it must have felt like a training exercise such was the simplicity in which they cruised to three points in East Lancashire.

With Arsenal hitting West Ham for six last week, the Gunners are clearly in a good moment at the minute. There’s a reason why they’ve scored 21 in their last five games.

But to score five at Turf Moor without breaking sweat was quite frankly an insult. You’ve got to make them earn such a one-sided victory as this.

The basics were lacking, that was much clear. It’s quite telling that the home faithful did in fact show some appreciation in two specific moments. Firstly for David Fofana running, secondly for substitute Jay Rodriguez putting himself about and clattering into a challenge. Finally someone actually showed some fight.

Jay Rod, who was making his first appearance of 2024, looked fired up, if not angry. For good reason too.

Now clearly there’s more to Premier League football than just showing passion, that much is obvious. But when you play for Burnley it should be a prerequisite.

Despite Vincent Kompany’s side suffering some heavy defeats this season, not once have I questioned their fight or their bottle. But on this occasion supporters were left with no choice.

It was just all so passive. The high press soon turned into a mid-block which was neither here nor there. Instead players were just standing off Arteta’s players, gifting them the time and space to dictate the tempo and momentum of the match.

Arsenal were able to get in behind at will and what followed was all so sadly predictable.

I also lost count of the number of times the ball was given away under no real pressure. Again, you can almost forgive players for being dispossessed when they’re being pressed with a real intensity or hunted down in packs. But when there’s no-one near you and you’re still gifting the ball to the opposition, questions really need to be asked.

Lack of connection

It’s a far cry from the Burnley side that passed their way to the Championship title last season. That identity seems to have disappeared. What do Burnley even stand for now? It’s hard to say.

What are fans supposed to identify with? Once again the home ends were left largely vacant come the full-time whistle. There was a mass exodus once the fourth and fifth goals went in and you can’t really blame those that trudged to the exits.

It doesn’t seem like there’s any great anger about the situation either, it’s just apathy, which in many ways is even more concerning. I suppose it’s not helped that Burnley’s fate has largely been known for a while now.

Where do Burnley go from here? Kompany insists he still believes, but being brutally honest he has to say that. What else can he say? It’s not like the Clarets can give up when we’re not even at the end of February. One would expect them to, either.

Stark reality

The statistics make for grim reading though, they really do. Let’s start with 18 defeats from 25, a loss ratio of 72 per cent.

Just five points have been collected from 13 home games this season. No other side has picked up so few.

Fifty-five goals have been conceded at an average of 2.2 per game. On 10 occasions the Clarets have shipped three or more.

Performances have generally been okay in recent weeks, Fulham aside. But this was a nosedive back to the early parts of the season where Burnley were miles off the pace.

The only positive I can find at this moment in time is that the fixture list does finally begin to relent a little, having had to play all three of the title challengers in recent weeks.

Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, West Ham and Brentford is, on paper at least, a kinder run of games coming up prior to the international break. It really is now or never, draws just won’t do.

But something drastic is going to have to change in the space of a few weeks because the results in the reverse fixtures don’t exactly point to Burnley wins. In fact, the Clarets lost all four against the aforementioned teams with an aggregate score of 9-2.

Burnley aren’t just in need of snookers, they’re in need of a miracle.