Burnley 3-2 West Bromwich Albion

The Clarets made it five wins out of the last six games thanks to a dramatic fightback over high-flying West Brom at Turf Moor last night. A brace from Andy Gray and a late winner from Chris McCann gave Burnley all three points after being 2-0 down early on.

Ade Akinbiyi kept his place in the starting line-up despite the return of Paul McVeigh who was eligible again after being ruled out of the game against Norwich. McVeigh had to settle for a place on the bench and watched on as once more everything bounced off Akinbiyi as the front man was again not at his best.

To say the Clarets were slow out of the blocks would be an understatement, but our midfield for large parts of the first half was simply none existent, with West Brom’s first goal after seven minutes a prime example.

Jason Koumas, who had already given us a couple of scares, used quick feet to beat Eric Djemba-Djemba, sidestepped James O’Connor who got nowhere near him, before firing a shot in from 25 yards. A good effort it was too, but Jensen didn’t manage to get a strong enough hand onto it and it went in when really it should have been stopped.

No sooner had that gone in that we found ourselves 2-0 down. Koumas found Zoltan Gera on the right wing with a fantastic cross field ball, the Hungarian looped over a first-time cross, and Nathan Ellington headed in via a deflection off his own hand.

The Clarets did get a goal back somewhat against the run of play on 15 minutes, and this bizarre goal started an amazing upturn in fortunes for Burnley. Dean Kiely inexplicably threw the ball out to midway inside his own half, dead centre, and Michael Duff cut it out, the ball flew forward and landed at the feet of Andy Gray, who lifted the ball over the advancing Kiely to give the Clarets a lifeline.

It was surprising to see Kiely, an experienced keeper give a goal away like this. One can only assume that he was looking for a quick break and saw something that nobody else in the ground could see. Still, it was 2-1 and the Clarets were back in the game.

Koumas threatened again with a shot that Jensen, this time, tipped away, and went close with a free-kick, but the Beast looked to have that one covered. Harley hit a weak shot wide after initial good work, and then just before half-time West Brom found themselves down to ten men.

The ball looped in the air as James O’Connor looked to have been held off from winning the ball by an Albion midfielder. Paul McShane came in to challenge for the header, didn’t get near it and hit Ginge full whack in a sickening clash of heads.

McShane did have his eyes on the ball to be fair, but going in that hard on an opponent could be construed as serious foul play, O’Connor was out cold before he hit the floor, he couldn’t even put his hands out to break his fall. The referee deemed the challenge as serious foul play and McShane was off, making sure that O’Connor was OK before exiting the pitch.

O’Connor was stretchered off wearing an oxygen mask, taken to the treatment room and regained consciousness after two or three minutes. He spent the night in hospital as a precaution and will be recovering this morning. Get well soon James.

Cotterill said that the O’Connor clash motivated the players in the second half, and it certainly was a much brighter Burnley side that came out for the second period. It took the Clarets just 4 minutes of the second half to make the one-man advantage count.

Burnley won a corner on the right, which Wade Elliott swung in deep. Wayne Thomas won the header at the back post, the ball bounced as Andy Gray, Robert Koren and Jonathan Greening all challenged the knock-down. Gray swivelled and the ball went in, although who got the final touch is unclear, but Andy Gray was credited with the goal, taking him up to 13 for the season in the league.

Game on, and it was all Burnley, although surprisingly it did take us until the 87th minute to get the winner. Wade Elliott missed a glorious chance to give us the lead before that as his free header was headed straight into Kiely’s hands, and Chris McCann who replaced James O’Connor thundered a header from a corner goalwards, but a very good save by Keily kept the scores level. We are getting much better with our corner routines though.

Ade eventually made way for McVeigh, and Spicer replaced Elliott on the right, but it was a superb Michael Duff cross from the right that gave us our winner. Duff crossed the ball in from deep, superbly putting the ball onto the penalty spot for the onrushing Chris McCann to head home via his shoulder. Ellington had done it earlier with a header wrong-footing the Beast after deflecting off his hand, and McCann did it with his header wrong-footing Kiely after coming off his shoulder, it’s swings and roundabouts.

So a good performance eventually from the Clarets and for once we had a bit of luck. The Beast really needs to get down quicker to shots as we have seen many times this season and was evident again last night, but Gray’s scoring again and Thomas is looking assured alongside the always impressive Steven Caldwell.

We’ve beaten a good team here, let’s go and beat another one on Wearside on Friday night.

Up the Clarets.