LUTON, United Kingdom, August 13 – Burnley began life under Scott Parker with a hugely impressive statement win against fellow Championship promotion hopefuls Luton.
Relegated from the Premier League alongside Sheffield United in May, both sides are expected to challenge at the top end of the table this season but Burnley looked a level above an admittedly depleted Hatters team.
Captain Josh Brownhill opened the scoring and Wilson Odobert doubled the visitors’ lead before half-time with an equally composed finish.
Untypically tentative and lacking their trademark intensity, the Hatters could have found themselves four down without a fantastic pair of saves from Thomas Kaminski at the start of the second half, the Belgium goalkeeper denying first Dara O’Shea and then Vitinho in front of the away end.
Tahith Chong’s close-range effort briefly gave the hosts hope of a comeback but O’Shea was not to be denied, heading powerfully home, before Vitinho arrowed in a late fourth.
Parker makes his mark
Parker’s last competitive game in charge of an English side was a harrowing 9-0 defeat at Anfield. A repeat never looked likely from the moment Brownhill ran clear of a young Luton defence to steer through the legs of Kaminski.
Parker has pedigree at this level – taking both Fulham and Bournemouth up – and his team were organised, confident and surprisingly direct throughout.
The first two goals came from early long passes in behind the Luton backline in a notable change from the patient possession game favoured by new Bayern Munich boss Vincent Kompany and they were a threat from set-pieces throughout.
After Chong pulled one back, O’Shea’s powerful header was excellently guided in before Lyle Foster ran from his own half to tee up Vitinho for a low drive.
Twenty-eight teams have bounced back from relegation at the first attempt since the formation of the Premier League, including both Leicester and Southampton last season.
Both of these teams will aim to join that list, with Luton boss Rob Edwards saying on Friday that he “embraced” the expectation of returning the Hatters to the big time at the first time of asking.
His team has been shorn of quality in midfield and he has first-choice defenders missing but this was a worrying start.
A brief spell at the start of the second period saw Elijah Adebayo flick a header onto the bar and Chong score, but other than that Burnley were comfortable.
They won the second tier with 101 points under Kompany two seasons ago and could well be the team to beat again.
What the managers said
Burnley manager Scott Parker:
“The execution of what we went out to do was incredible, and the belief and the confidence that this result will bring.
“From afar, people will look at it and will talk about it. But the biggest thing is the statement we’ve proved to ourselves.
“A lot of hard work has gone in, a different voice from myself. To a man, the players were superb.”
Luton manager Rob Edwards to BBC Three Counties Radio:
“It’s not the result we wanted and there will be frustration.
“Our vulnerability is that ball in behind with the way we play and that showed up tonight. We have to work hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.
“If you take the goals out of that there was a good performance from a young team and we will continue to get better. We have six or seven players who will be back soon and we want to get one or two in as well.
“Burnley are a good team and they punished us. We dominated a lot of the game.”
