West Ham 1 : 1 Burnley

Burnley began life in the post Sean Dyche era with a 1-1 draw against a West Ham side juggling their resources to chase both a top four slot and the Europa League title.

All the pre-game talk arose from West Ham’s ascent to a European semi final or the shock dismmissal of Dyche. The game became even more of a distracton when it was stopped for nine minutes due to a horrific injury to Ashley Westwood.

There was something surreal about the moment Burnley took the lead just after he was carried off. Jay Rodriguez headed a corner onto the bar and Wout Weghorst reacted first to head the rebound home. News of the goal seemed to take longer than normal to reach the traveling fans at the away end who had surely resigned themselves to fate being unkind to their club for the remainder of the season.

West Ham pulled themselves together after the interval and only a series of heroics by Nick Pope prevented a loss. He did let one by him in the 74th minute when Tomas Soucek guided the ball in wit his chest.

Then he survived a bombardment with some outstanding saves including a stellar one from a Soucek header directed skilfully downwards.

The point is not disastrous for either side and Burnley might well see this as something gained from one of their harder games, although Maxwell Cornet missed a penalty that could have put them 2-0 up.

West Ham will be disappointed but few would have swapped a positive result against Frankfurt for anything here if truth be told. Both sides will move on quickly.

West Ham: Fabianski; Cresswell, Dawson, Diop, Rice, Lanzini, Vlasic, Bowen, Soucek, Johnson, Antonio

Burnley: Pope, Lowton. Taylor, Cork, Tarkowski, Weghorst, McNeil, Westwood, Rodriguez, Cornet, Collins

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