Goals, games and the rise of Chris Wood
Chris Wood joined fellow All Whites Ryan Nelsen and Winston Reid as an English Premier League centurion towards the end of last season, finishing with 104 caps (and 35 goals) to his name. As he prepares to return to action with Burnley this weekend, here
Match 1: April 11, 2009
At Fratton Park: Portsmouth 2 (Kaboul 33’, Kranjcˇar 65’) West Bromwich Albion 2 (Greening 48, Brunt 62’).
Wood was only 17 when his coach Tony Mowbray gave him the nod to make his Premier League debut for West Bromwich Albion, who were tied 2-2 with Portsmouth with a quarter of an hour to go.
Awin would have been a big
boost for The Baggies, who entered the round three points adrift at the bottom of the table, but there was no winner for Wood – or anyone else – and they were eventually relegated to the Championship, with the Kiwi making his second Premier League appearance in stoppage time against Blackburn Rovers on the final day of the season.
Match 4: August 16, 2014
At King Power Stadium: Leicester City 2 (Ulloa 22’, Wood 86’) Everton 2 (McGready 20’, Naismith 45’).
Wood made a third Premier League appearance for West Brom early in the 2010-11 season, as they bounced straight back to the top tier, but he had to wait four years and play for six other years before he got back there with Leicester.
Coming on with 12 minutes to play against Everton on the opening day of the season and his side trailing 2-1, Wood proceeded to score his first Premier League goal and pull them level, curling his shot past goalkeeper Tim Howard when the ball fell to him unmarked in the box four minutes from time.
Match 11: August 27, 2017
At Wembley Stadium: Tottenham Hotspur 1 (Alli 49’) Burnley 1 (Wood 90’+2).
Wood made six other appearances off the bench for Leicester that season, but none the following season, and at the start of the 2015-16 season – which would end with Leicesterwinning the Premier League in fairytale fashion – hemoved back to the Championship with Leeds United.
At Leeds, he scored 41 goals in 83 league matches, but couldn’t help them win promotion to the Premier League – something they finally achieved this year, after 16 seasons away. He was sold to Burnley in
August 2017 and made a dream debut, coming off the bench to score a stoppage-time equaliser against Tottenham at Wembley.
Match 12: September 10, 2017
At Turf Moor: Burnley 1 (Wood 3’) Crystal Palace 0.
Between his first and second appearances for Burnley, Wood flew home to New Zealand and scored his second international hat-trick for the All Whites against the Solomon Islands in the first leg of aWorld Cup qualifying tie.
Once he was back in England, Burnley coach Sean Dyche handed him his first start in the Premier League – more than eight years after his first appearance – and he delivered immediately, scoring in the third minute in a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace.
Match 27: March 10, 2018
At London Stadium: Burnley 3 (Barnes 66’, Wood 70’ 81’) West Ham United 0.
Wood ended up scoring 10 times
in 24 Premier League matches in his first season at Burnley, averaging a goal every 163 minutes.
On this occasion, against West Ham United, he grabbed his first Premier League brace.
Three more have followed – against Brighton & Hove Albion and Cardiff City in the 2018-19 season and Norwich City last season – but he is yet to score a Premier League hattrick.
Match 30: April 14, 2018
At Turf Moor: Burnley 2 (Wood 6’, Long 9’) Leicester City 1 (Vardy 72’).
Wood has played 13 Premier League matches against his former clubs (Brighton & Hove Albion, Leicester City, and West Bromwich Albion) while at Burnley and scored in six of them – including on this occasion late in the 2017-18 season.
This goal was Wood’s 10th in the Premier League, pushing him past Nelsen, who managed nine, as New
Andrew Voerman
Zealand’s leading goalscorer in the competition.
Match 58: January 21, 2019 At Old Trafford: Manchester
United 2 (Pogba pen 87’, Lindelof 90’ +2) Burnley 2 (Barnes 51’, Wood
81’).
Wood played in all 38 of Burnley’s Premier League fixtures during the 2018-19 season and scored 10 goals for the second campaign in a row.
Eight of his goals were scored in wins, while one was scored in loss, and the other in this draw away to Manchester United. When he netted in the 81st minute, it looked like he had clinched a famous win, but two late goals for the Premier League’s most successful side meant Burnley had to settle for a point.
Match 94: January 22, 2020
At Old Trafford: Manchester United 0 Burnley 2 (Wood 39, Rodriguez 56’).
Almost exactly a year later, Burnley went one better at the Theatre of Dreams, with Wood scoring the opener in a 2-0 win and providing an assist for Jay Rodriguez in the second half.
Wood has scored in each of the three matches he’s played at Old Trafford – two for Burnley, and one for the OlyWhites during the 2012 Olympics.
Match 100 – July 18, 2020
At London Stadium: West Ham United 0 Burnley 1 (Rodriguez 38’).
Wood was absent with an Achilles injury when the 2019-20 season finally resumed in July, after a four-month break amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, but he returned in time to register his 100th appearance in the Premier League.
He wasn’t able to find the back of the net as Burnley beat West Ham – one of his efforts was ruled out for offside – but he did join Nelsen (who got there during the 2008-09 season with Blackburn Rovers) and Reid (who got there during the 2015-16 season with West Ham) as a Premier League centurion.
Match 104: July 26, 2020
At Turf Moor: Burnley 1 (Wood 44’) Brighton & Hove Albion 2 (Bissouma 20’, Connolly 50’).
Wood finished 2019-20 by breaking the record he had set (alongside Ashley Barnes) the previous campaign for the most goals in a Premier League season by a Burnley player.
His 14th goal of the season – and 34th overall for Burnley, in 94
matches – was a tidy finish past Brighton’s Australian keeper Maty Ryan, but it wasn’t enough to give Burnley awin that would have lifted them from 10th to eighth.
What’s next?
Wood signed a new contract last November which is set to keep him at Burnley to the end of the 2022-23 season.
The Clarets are heading into their fifth straight season in the Premier League, having finished 16th (the year before Wood arrived), seventh, 15th, and 10th in the previous four.
They will be aiming for another top-half finish, rather than another relegation battle, and Wood will be a key figure for them again.
Burnley weren’t in action as the 2020-21 season began last weekend, as their opponents, Manchester United, were given extra time off after making it to the semifinals of the Europa League, which only concluded at the end of August.
They advanced to the third round of the Carabao Cup yesterday, with Wood coming off the bench and slotting his penalty in a shootout win over fellow Premier League side Sheffield United, and he is expected to start when they face Leicester tomorrow.