Thus, as the Clarets attempt to regain their footing in the top flight, being able to get that monkey off their back in their third match of the season should help ease some anxiety.
It will also have helped that the win came against another top-tier team, even though both teams made significant changes to the game, as seems to be the case these days.
For Forest, it was seven, and it was evident that their formidable forward line—Taiwo Awoniyi, Brennan Johnson, and Morgan Gibbs-White—was not present.
However, Steve Cooper doesn’t need that as an excuse, and he even declined to use it as one after the game. Nevertheless, Burnley made three more substitutions, for a total of ten. Despite this, it didn’t appear to have any impact on their performance; in fact, the starting lineup that took the field appeared to be as well-rehearsed and cohesive as ever.
At the City Ground, Burnley controlled possession, having 60% of the ball, and their press worked well right away. Their passing was precise and sharp, and even though they were frequently forced to play out of the back, Arijanet Muric, starting in goal for the first time this season, and the defense in front of him never gave up and remained composed when they had the ball and tried to pass their way out.
Vincent Kompany’s men, by and large, controlled the game on opposition turf. They limited Forest to very little other than one or two brief threats on the counter-attack. The fact the hosts didn’t have a single shot on target all night tells its own story.
If we’re being honest, Burnley weren’t exactly creating chance after chance either. It was a game relatively low on clear-cut opportunities, but the visitors always looked the more likely.
They got into some great areas time and time again, wide men Jacob Bruun Larsen and Nathan Redmond in particular picking up the ball deep before embarking on driving runs towards the Forest goal. But in the final third they just lacked that final ball, that final cross or shot to make a real difference.
That was until the very last minute of normal time anyway, when substitute Zeki Amdouni produced a real moment of quality to send the near 3,000 travelling fans housed behind the goal into raptures.
