By Turftalker
September 30 2004

Burnley notched up their sixth draw of the season yesterday as they were held to a 2-2 draw against Stoke City. The clarets had taken an early two goal lead, courtesy of Ian Moore and Robbie Blake. But the sending of Michael Duff changed the match.

Burnley lined up roughly as follows....

             Coyne

Duff Sinclair McGreal Camara

Chaplow Hyde Grant Branch

          Blake Moore

The Clarets had a dream start when Ian Moore scored after 3 minutes. Burnley doubled the lead in the 19th minute when Robbie Blake scored fromt he spot after being bundled over. Ade Akinbiyi scored for Stoke after a scramble in the Burnley box and the Clarets were reduced to 10 men when Michael Duff was shown a second yellow card for handball.

Stoke started strongly in the second half and equalised when Akinbiyi slotted past Coyne. Richard Duffy was brought on for his debut but Burnley didn't really create too much after this point and will look back to the chances missed in the first half, when the score was 2-0, as to why we didn't pick up the three points.

"I thought we started very brightly and deserved to be in front," admitted Cotterill. "The two goals were deserved, it was a good finish from Ian Moore and Robbie kept his cool for the penalty. I thought that the chance Richard Chaplow had at 2-0 could have killed them off, but I thought Richard was terrific today and covered every blade of grass."

"I didn't think it was a sending off," he said speaking about the sending off "But we'll have to see the video of it before we decide to make an appeal, so we'll look at that now and it might have to be done first thing on Monday."

"To be fair to the boys, Stoke are a very good side this season and it's always going to be tough especially with 10 men after 41 minutes."

"He is a young defender, a Wales Under 21 international," he revealed speaking about Duffy "I thought he did well and proved why he had a big money move from League Two to the Premiership. He looked a little nervous at first, but he's a good player."

Other results:-

Derby 1 Wigan 1

Gillingham 0 Brighton 1

Ipswich 3 Plymouth 2

Preston 1 Crewe 0

QPR 3 Leicester 2

Rotherham 1 Millwall 1

Sheffield Utd 1 Coventry 1

Watford 0 Reading 1

Wolves 2 Cardiff 3