Verdict: How Burnley's opening 10 seconds set the tone for huge Norwich City victory in the quest for promotion

Heading into this game at the back of a three-game week, I was fearful Burnley may suffer from physical and mental fatigue. I sensed this would be another grind, a game where frustration may set in and clear-cut chances could be in short supply.

I’ve never had any doubts about Burnley dealing with the pressures of the promotion battle, they’ve got that side of things nailed down. But after being forced to go to the well in back-to-back slogs against Coventry and Derby, there was a part of me that felt this could be a game too far.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. In the first-half, the Clarets played with a level of intensity Norwich simply couldn’t handle. Such was their level of domination, they should have been out of sight by half-time.

While we had to endure a nervy final 15 minutes or so after Norwich’s goal back, I still never doubted Burnley’s ability to get the job done. It’s just what they do.

Clear intentions

Ten seconds was all it took me to realise my premonition was absolutely miles off. Yes, 10 seconds.

It was Norwich who took the kick-off, but such was the ferocity of Burnley’s press they swarmed the visitors like bees straight from the first whistle to win the ball back.

A mere 40 seconds were on the clock when the Clarets first threatened, but Jaidon Anthony’s pullback was just a bit behind Zian Flemming.

That set the tone for what was an alarmingly one-sided first 45 minutes. The Clarets were simply streets ahead of their opponents.

While the Canaries did threaten on a couple of occasions, they were unexpected chances that came completely out of the blue, such as Borja Sainz clipping over James Trafford and wide after navigating a way past Burnley’s two centre-backs. There was no sustained pressure, no spells where the Clarets were camped in their own half.

In a way, Norwich were tailor-made for Burnley, certainly in the first-half anyway. They were insistent on playing it out from the back, when they were clearly not good enough to carry it out – a la Vincent Kompany’s Burnley from the start of last season.

It’s genuinely impressive how you can deploy a 5-4-1 to purposefully sit back and slow the game down, yet still give up acres of space in your own half.

But as poor as Norwich were during the first-half, Burnley made them that way with the intensity of their play, the manner in which they moved the ball and how they were able to pick out their creative, attacking players in pockets of space.

Welcome scorer

That leads me straight to Burnley’s opener, which came from the unlikely source of Hannibal – scoring his first goal for the club.

This was a delightfully constructed goal. It began with Hannibal noticing a gap in behind Norwich’s backline before darting forwards to exploit it. Josh Cullen, as he tends to do, picked up on the run straight away, but he still had a lot to do to loft an exquisite through ball over the head of the last defender and straight into Hannibal’s grasp, but he did it with aplomb. The onrushing midfielder did the rest, controlling the ball before sticking it away with the confidence of a player that has done this on numerous occasions.

One quickly became two, as Jaidon Anthony got in on the act with his fourth goal from his last five games.

There was a slice of luck involved in the goal as the winger’s effort took a heavy deflection off former Rovers man Shane Duffy to wrongfoot the keeper. But Burnley earned that slice of luck with the way they won the ball back high up the pitch through Josh Brownhill before, you guessed it, picking out Anthony in acres of space. Norwich were asking for trouble.

At this stage of the game, it was wave after wave of Burnley attack. Boring, boring Burnley, eh? Funnily enough, they’ve now scored more goals than Sheffield United this season. I fully expect that stat to be redundant when Sheffield United smash Plymouth Argyle this afternoon, but you still get my drift.

Getting the job done

The only slight negative was that Burnley were unable to add a third. But given they’ve still yet to concede more than once in a league game this season, which remains one of the crazier stats (and there’s been plenty!), you almost expected the hosts to see out the game in a calm, controlled and professional manner.

That’s exactly what they were doing, too. Norwich, who changed things up at the break, both tactically and in personnel, inevitably enjoyed a spell of pressure at the start of the second-half but Parker’s men saw it off relatively comfortably.

The game was clearly fizzling out until, in the 76th minute, the away side scrambled a goal back through Jack Stacey to set up a nervy finish.

It was a soft, soft goal to concede from Burnley’s perspective. Very uncharacteristic. A near-post corner was flicked on and Stacey had the simple task of bundling home from inside the six-yard box, completely unopposed.

While Norwich inevitably threw men forward and went a bit more direct during the final stages, I never truly felt Burnley were in trouble.

Of course, when balls are coming into your box, all it takes is for a deflection or for it to fall to the wrong person in the wrong place. Anything can happen. But perhaps I’ve just seen this too many times now, I know how the script goes. Burnley do whatever it takes to get the job done, they’re inevitable – and so it proved.

They move top for now, perhaps temporarily. The job is far from done, but with just four games remaining, this was a huge step.