By Longsider
November 16 2004

The Clarets got back to winning ways following our defeats against Ipswich and Totenham with a 1-0 victory over Nottingham Forest.

Steve Cotterill received a couple of injury boosts before the game with John McGreal, Jean Louis Valois and Ian Moore all passing fitness tests. The side lined up roughly as follows.....

Jensen

Duff McGreal Cahill Camara

Roche Hyde Grant O'Connor Valois

Blake

Burnley started the game very well and got a goal in the 6th minute through Robbie Blake. Blake received a ball from Lee Roche and beat his defender to drill a shot towards goal that was deflected in on the line by a Forest defender. The goal proved to be the winner although it could have been more had Blake and Ian Moore, who came on for Valois, taken their chances.

Forest did have 3 good chances with Ross Gardner hitting the bar from 30 yards out, Brain Jensen saved well from Marlon King and Gareth Taylor had a free header from around 5 yards out but put it wide.

"We’re pleased with that, it was a big three points," Steve Cotterill said "We put a lot of hard work in there so all credit to the players for that."

"I thought we were the better side in the first half but Forest were better in the second half, but we managed to get the early goal and that was enough."

 

"We were disrupted with injuries when Jean-Louis Valois had to go off, because he does give us good balance on the left. It allowed us though to bring Ian Moore back in and he worked his socks off."

"Then we lost Micah Hyde who tweaked his hamstring in a challenge during the first half."

"And Robbie Blake hasn’t scored in a few games but he’s had his haircut and drove here a different way and scored. Hopefully he’ll be bald next time and score another goal."

"We’ll enjoy the weekend and then look at Brighton on Monday morning. It has been a long hard month for us and we’ll assess everyone early next week."