Burnley fans might need a bit of time to recover from yet another Carling Cup shocker last night. A magnificent win over Arsenal puts them through to the semi-finals.
Derby also stunned Stoke last night scoring a controversial late penalty, but didn’t kill their Premiership opposition in quite the same style that Burnley beat Arsenal.
Burnley bettered Wenger’s kids all-over, with a goal in each half from McDonald and nothing to celebrate for Arsenal.
It’s not like Arsenal didn’t have chances but goalkeeper Brian Yensen was on fire, making six one-on-one stops. Yensen was man of the match in a game where any one of the Burnley players were worthy of the same title.
Despite Yensen’s commendable performance Arsenal really should have scored at least a couple of those opportunities. The inexperience of Arsenal’s kids – in a team where only Bentdner and Silverstre weren’t teenagers – showed through, as Wenger remarked, in fragile defence and questionable finishing from strikers.
I’m sure Gunners fans have been going on today with excuses that they didn’t care enough about the match to field their first-team and don’t want the ‘Mickey Mouse cup’.
But when title hopes are already looking dubious and nothing has been won for nearly five years, I wouldn’t snub any silverware. And when the winning of the Premier League so often comes down to depth of squad, it doesn’t bode well when your B-team doesn’t even get a goal past a Championship side.
However, this story is about Burnley and last night it was Burnley’s night. Fans were never quiet, singing a host of chants such as ‘Are you Chelsea in disguise?’
Burnley manager, Owen Coyle, in view of the semi-finals, explained that “whoever we get we will be underdogs so it doesn’t really matter who we get.” And I’m sure he doesn’t care anyway, Burnley will just be appreciative of the semi-final experience.
On the back of wins to both Chelsea and Arsenal, anything else now would be a huge, huge bonus.
Oh, what a game. Oh, what a night!
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Burnley played very well… although Arsenal were poor, expected more from them even if they were mainly youngsters