Burnley and Torino met in a Club Friendly on Saturday, with the Italian side taking all three points. The match finished 1-0 to Torino after A. Dembele struck in the eighteenth minute. It was a quiet afternoon at Turf Moor, the kind where one moment does all the work.
Dembele's goal came from the run of play, and it held up for the rest of the contest. Burnley pressed on, throwing bodies forward, but Torino's defence stayed compact. Laurent, Ekdal, Edwards and Raghouber all came off the bench at some point, and the visitors made their changes count when it mattered.
Burnley had more of the ball, 60 percent to be precise, and they registered 109 attacks against Torino's 89. Yet possession is only half the picture, and here's the thing — they created nothing that troubled the away keeper. Seven corners to none tells its own story.
There were no cards on show, which was a surprise given the number of free kicks conceded. Burnley gave away sixteen, Torino twelve. The game was played at a reasonable tempo until the final quarter when Burnley pushed harder.
Neither side is building a table from this one, but recent form offers a different kind of context. Burnley have drawn two and lost three in their last five friendlies, while Torino have won two and drawn one. Not exactly a statement, but the result was clean enough.