‘I had that feeling’: Dyche predicted Tottenham would do one thing on Sunday

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Sean Dyche admitted that Burnley were made to pay for their dreadful start to Sunday’s 4-0 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur, telling the Clarets’ website that he expected Jose Mourinho’s side to ‘turn up’.

With Burnley producing a performance flatter than the Dutch countryside in North London, a previously out-of-sorts Spurs side wasted little time bringing an emphatic end to a run of five defeats in six Premier League games.

It took just two minutes for the hosts to take the lead, Gareth Bale continuing his recent resurgence with a close range tap-in after the Burnley defence had been left bamboozled by a Heung-Min Son cross.

By half-time, the game was over as a contest thanks to fine finishes from Harry Kane and Lucas Moura.  

Speaking after a result which left Burnley just six points above the relegation zone, Dyche admitted that he had visions of Tottenham exploding out of the blocks.

Expecting it and stopping it, however, are two very different things.

“I was actually worried about the game in the sense that when teams like this are having a tough spell, they rarely do that for too long,” Dyche explained.

“They are a quality side and even during a questionable run, they turn up and did today.

“I didn’t want to say that before because you don’t want to tempt fate, but I did have that feeling that if they got a foothold early on, they can hurt you, and they did.

“We gave them the first goal, which was really awful from our point of view, although it’s rare we do that.

“That immediately calms them down because they could have been looking at today and thinking we were an awkward side who are hard to play against. Their manager referenced that, but when you give them a start like that, it’s very difficult.”

While Son and Kane were close-to unplayable again, this was Bale’s finest Premier League performance since those heady days of 2013.

After opening the scoring in the blink of an eye and setting up Kane’s latest strike with a glorious 50-yard diagonal, the Welsh wizard capped a fine display with Tottenham’s fourth on 55 minutes, wrapping a trademark first-time finish into the corner.