Premier League : Liverpool 0 – 1 Burnley

Ashley Barnes’s late penalty snatched all three points as Burnley ended Liverpool’s unbeaten home run with a surprise 1-0 win at Anfield. Liverpool have gone four league games without scoring for the first time since May 2000

Liverpool’s first defeat in three years and 273 days leaves them fourth, on 34 points, six points behind leaders Manchester United at the halfway stage of the season.

Burnley’s first league win at Anfield since 1975 lifts them up one place to 16th on 19 points.

Jurgen Klopp’s team dictated play for much of the match. Sadio Mane went close with an early header, Xherdan Shaqiri blazed a shot just wide and Divock Origi also forced Burnley’s Nick Pope into action more than once in a one-sided first half.

A minute before half-time, Origi crashed a shot against the crossbar after a defensive error by Ben Mee put him clear on goal.

After Trent Alexander-Arnold went close, Klopp introduced Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino from the bench on 58 minutes, and Salah immediately brought a fine reflex save from Pope with a low, angled shot.

Mane shot over after being teed up by Salah as the Reds continued to press, while visiting substitute Johann Gudmundsson put a rare chance wide for Burnley after excellent wing play by Dwight McNeil.

Firmino side-footed wide on 72 minutes but the Reds could find no way through and, seven minutes before the end, Alisson brought down Barnes in the penalty area.

The Burnley forward calmly converted the penalty to end the Reds’ 68-match unbeaten home record.

COMINGUP NEXT :

• Liverpool will Travel to Tottenham Stadium to take on Jose Mourinho side on 28^th January
• Burnley will host Aston Villa on 27^th January.

Match-Stats :

Post-Match Reactions :

And Dyche pointed to the inner belief of his players as key to Burnley’s first at Anfield since 1974.

“It’s a great result, without a shadow of a doubt,” purred the Clarets boss. We’ve given a good account of ourselves here in recent seasons and we’ve put in another massive shift.

“This is a motivated group of people. It’s not just about one player; it’s about a whole team who were very diligent in their shape and organisation.”

“They have that inner belief that it takes, even when you are defending it out. It still needs belief and a collective spirit and attitude – and we did have moments.

“A tremendous amount of effort has to go into performances at places like this because you know you are playing a top side who are going to keep the ball and are going to probe and ask questions of you defensively.

“But we’ve kept them down to only a few good chances. There are things we can still do better; we know that, but it’s not easy coming to places like this.

“We stayed on it and Barnesy wriggled free to get a penalty – and it’s almost an impossibility to get as few as we do – and puts it away very well.”

Jürgen Klopp offered a frank assessment after Liverpool were beaten 1-0 by Burnley at Anfield on Thursday evening. On whether he feels luck is not quite with Liverpool at the moment… 

“No, it is not the luckiest period of our lives, for sure not. But I think it would be a bit cheap to put it all on that; that we have not enough luck or in a specific moment. I think our problem is the decision-making in the moment and decisions are based on information I give obviously and the mood you are in, so how confident you are to do it in really small spaces and stuff like this.

That’s why I said what I said. That’s the reason why we didn’t score in these moments. It is not cool to mention it now but we won games with lesser possession against Burnley, with lesser chances against Burnley and we won them. Tonight we didn’t win because we didn’t score in the situations.

When I look at the game back now and when I think about it – in all the interviews I had enough time to think a little bit about it – how is it possible that you lose that game? But we lost it. That’s our, and that means my, fault.”