/ 7 January 2009

Spurs clinch 4-1 win over Burnley

Tottenham substitute Jamie O’Hara scored one goal and set up two others to lead the defending League Cup champion to a 4-1 win over Burnley in the first-leg semifinal on Tuesday.

Spurs played poorly in the first half and trailed the League Championship promotion contender from the 15th minute, but manager Harry Redknapp barracked his team at halftime and sent on O’Hara for the ineffective David Bentley.

Within two minutes, the midfielder hit a corner kick for Michael Dawson to head in and shot through goalkeeper Brian Jensen’s legs five minutes later.

Roman Pavlyuchenko added a third goal in the 65th and moments later Burnley defender Michael Duff headed a free kick by O’Hara past his own goalkeeper.

The victory meant English Premier League struggler Tottenham was still favoured to reach the March 1 final against either Manchester United or Derby, who play the first leg of their semifinal on Wednesday.

The second legs are in two weeks.

Tough task
”I wouldn’t say it’s a mountain to climb,” Burnley manager Owen Coyle said. ”It’s a wee bit more than that. It’s a long way back but we’ll go and try and be positive.”

Tottenham’s hold on the trophy it has won four times looked shaky throughout the first half as Burnley, which beat Arsenal, Chelsea and Fulham to reach this stage, looked more like a Premier League team than its opponent.

Bentley played poorly out of position on the left wing, Aaron Lennon crossed erratically from the right, Gareth Bale was shaky in defence and the strikers struggled to force any openings. Burnley, meanwhile, threatened constantly, particularly down the right wing through former Manchester United trainee Chris Eagles.

Redknapp said he understood why the Tottenham fans jeered their team off at halftime.

”People will accept you making mistakes, they’ll accept you giving the ball away, they’ll accept you losing the ball if you try to beat somebody,” Redknapp said. ”But they won’t accept you giving up when you lose the ball and they won’t accept you not running back and chasing to try and get the ball back.

”That’s what these people pay their money to come and see. They come to see effort as well as skill.”

O’Hara’s introduction changed the game, though, giving the home fans in the 31 377-strong White Hart Lane crowd something to cheer other than the pre-match presentation of new signing Jermain Defoe.

After setting up Dawson for his goal, O’Hara collected a headed flick by Luka Modric, who had been one of Spurs’ few good first-half performers, and scored with a low shot at the far post.

Robbie Blake curled a shot just over at the other end and goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes almost gave Burnley an equaliser with an ill-judged and unsuccessful effort to claim the ball, but Pavlyuchenko shimmied past defender Clarke Carlisle on the edge of the visitors’ area and finished with a low shot past Jensen.

The score was made even more one-sided in the 68th when Duff failed to properly direct an attempted headed clearance and instead made it 4-1.

But it was Burnley and Eagles who had the best early chances, and he set up Martin Paterson for the opening goal.

Eagles easily got past left-back Bale to cross and Paterson tapped in from close range past the diving Gomes. It could have been 2-0 nine minutes later when Paterson glanced a header wide from another cross by Eagles.

”The first-half performance we were delighted with,” Coyle said. ”We looked a very good side and scored a very good goal. I don’t think anyone would have foreseen what happened in the second half.” — Sapa-AP