What Chris Wood brings to Burnley

 

Chris Wood hit the headlines yesterday after he became the first player to score a first-half hat-trick since Michael Owen did it for Liverpool against Newcastle in 1998.  

That hat-trick also meant he has hit 10 or more league goals for the fourth successive campaign. This achievement holds more significance considering his slow start to the season where he had only scored four league goals before March.

Since then he has got on the scoresheet six times in the last six games. As well as providing a goal threat he also has other qualities that he brings to the team, let’s go deeper into these qualities:

 

Unselfish play

Strikers can often be selfish in the way they play and become hell-bent on scoring goals which is all well and good but a Sean Dyche side focuses on a collective effort rather than the performance of one individual. 

Wood fits into this dynamic well and that can be shown with the fact that he has registered two assists in his last three games. One of those assists came in yesterday’s game and was a perfect example of his unselfishness.

 Jay Rodriguez gave him the ball in the box and having already scored three times he would have been forgiven if he had tried to add to his tally. Instead, he laid the ball off to Ashley Westwood who rifled the ball into the top corner. 

His assist in the previous home game against Newcastle took more work. You don’t expect strikers to be putting crosses in but this is what Wood did as he picked out Matej Vydra with a low-driven cross and the number 27 finished off his teammate's good work.

Predatory instinct 

Like all great strikers Wood has the ability to be in the right place at the right time. This was evident in his second goal at Molineux when after seeing Dwight Mcneil dispossess Nélson Semedo in the penalty area he raced across the box to pounce on the ball and tap it home.

 

Marc Atkins /gettyimages

In the Arsenal game last month Wood scored a goal similar to the one he scored for Leicester against Watford in 2013 except this time it didn’t hit him square in the face. 

Along with his strike partner Vydra, Wood set out to press the Arsenal defence in the box and this forced Granit Xhaka to make a rash pass intended for David Luiz. Unfortunately for Xhaka it hit Wood and bounced off his thigh into the net. They all count.

 

Ball control

Burnley fans have been critical of Wood’s ability on the ball in the past but it looks to be an area he is developing in. 

His first goal against Wolves was a superb finish where he held the ball up, knocked it through the legs of Conor Coady and smashed it into the opposite corner. 

He is no stranger to this type of goal, in the final game of last season against Brighton he exquisitely controlled Erik Pieters ball over the top and slotted it past Robert Sanchez for his 14th league goal of that campaign. 

With five games to go that figure is well within reach this time around and if he keeps on firing at the rate that he is, that can only bode well for the Clarets.