By Longsider
October 27 2004

The Clarets have caused the only shock of the Carling Cup last night after destroying a very strong Aston Villa side at Turf Moor.

Steve Cotterill made three changes to the side that lost against Derby with Lee Roche coming in for the suspended Frank Sinclair, Richard Duffy coming in for the injured Ian Moore and Tony Grant replacing Richard Chaplow. The side lined up roughly as follows.....

Coyne

Roche Duff McGreal Camara

Duffy Grant Hyde Valois

Blake Branch

Aston Villa fielded their strongest team so that meant we faced a strikeforce of Carlton Cole and Juan Pablo Angel. Burnley took the game to the visitors with some good football in the opening minutes of the match. Our first goal came in the 9th minute when Robbie Blake twisted his way past Mark Delany to deliver a pin point cross for Graham Branch to head in. The Clarets didn't sit back on the lead and continued to take the game to Villa with Camara, Hyde and Blake all going close. Blake then had an effort that went agonisingly wide after taking a deflection off a Villa defender.

The visitors didn't really create anything in the first half and this was solely down to our fantastic defence who didn't give anything away. The offside trap worked brilliantly and the longer the game went on, the more disinterested their forwards appeared to be.

Burnley went into the break with the one goal lead although it should have two when Tony Grant fired over the bar from close range.

The restart saw Burnley continue the pressure, Branch fired just over after his shot took a wicked deflection, and after a number of crosses had gone across the Villa 6 yard box without a final touch, we got our reward when Richard Duffy was brought down for a cast iron penalty. Robbie Blake stepped up to put the ball into the bottom right corner of the goal but Sorensen was upto the task and brilliantly tipped it wide for a corner.

At this point you could sense the tension around the ground as the thought of Villa getting an undeserved equaliser began to creep in but credit once again to Burnley who picked themselves up after the penalty miss and continued to create chances.

The 2nd goal did come when Tony Grant played a one-two with Blake from a corner and then whipped in a quick cross that Mo Camara headed in. The goal meant a lot to the majority of the people in the ground but it meant that little bit more for Camara who run 75 yards to hug the man who has had much faith in him, Steve Cotterill.

Hyde and Valois both had great chances to get a third but then disaster struck when Angel pulled a goal back for Villa when he brilliantly headed past Coyne. The goal raised Villa's large and vocal support but it was short lived as some good play by Roche and Duffy and then by Blake who gave Valois the ball on the edge of the box. Valois, with some nice footwork, cut inside Ridgewell and fired into the roof of the net with his right foot.

Make no mistake about it we thoroughly deserved the victory and the difference between the performance tonight and the one against Derby is quite incredible. There were so many heroes tonight with Danny Coyne's handling superb, the defence in fantastic form, our wide players creating all sorts of problems as well as our midfield bossing the game but i would have to say that Micah Hyde and Robbie Blake were simply outstanding.

Steve Cotterill was naturally delighted with the performance and the result.......

"I'm very proud of them tonight, although I'm always proud of them anyway. They were terrific tonight and it was good for us to give the fans a good performance after the last two games at home."

"We scored three good goals too. We said to Mo that in the last two games he hasn't been anywhere near the box, so that may have taken them by surprise and we encouraged him to do it tonight. He was doing it earlier in the season and almost scored at West Ham."

"There's always the danger of a counter attack, but we'll have to think about that one in the future!
I don't know where he was running afterwards though, because he came all the way over to me and then had to run all the way back to left back! He should have just waved at me!"

"Jean Louis has scored with his right foot, so he's delighted with that one!But the catalyst for the performance tonight was Robbie Blake. He was superb and put in a real captain's performance. Forget the penalty, because Tommy Sorensen is a great penalty saver and that was another great save."

"Villa are a good, good team though and we're delighted to be through. David has done a great job there and they are a hard working team, so it's all credit to our boys tonight."

Aston Villa manager David O'Leary had this to say.......

"That was embarrassing. Burnley were the better team by far. We didn't come here to lose. We came here with our strongest side but there were no positives tonight."

"It was a disgusting performance- definitely the worst since I have been here. We've let all the fans down who have come to see us."