Mark Hughes realised his side had been in a battle and was relieved to be in this afternoon’s 6th round draw. “We’ve been through a difficult tie,” he said, “We are still in the hat though we would really have liked to have won the game today.
“I thought it never lived up to the hype that the crowd were suggesting beforehand and I thought they didn’t play much against us, but we didn’t create enough clear cut chances to win the game ourselves.
“The view in the dressing room after the game was that Morten Gamst Pedersen thought there was a handball in the area and he also thought he was brought down in the box when he was the one who was fouled [he was booked for diving, not fouling].
“We are thankful that we are still in the hat and look forward to the game at Ewood, I’m sure there will be a great atmosphere and I’m sure back at Ewood we’ll have enough to beat them this time.”
Steve Cotterill felt the Clarets deserved another opportunity after the goalless draw. “I thought both teams didn’t want to lose today,” he said. “That was the order of the day.
“The pitch was bobbly and it was quite windy and they had the wind behind them in the first half and we had it in the second half, probably all in all a draw was right. I think it would have taken a mistake of a bit of individual brilliance to settle it. I don’t know whether it was a good game or not because I was so wrapped up in it.
“We weren’t really happy with the first half performance but we were a lot better in the second half with aspects of our game that we are normally good at.
“They are a Premiership club though and we knew we had to play well if we were going to beat them. Whenever you play Premiership teams, they always shift the ball a bit quicker and they always have that cutting edge, so you have to be careful that you don’t open the game up to your detriment.
“We didn’t want to get beat today, we didn’t play for a draw but we defended well and didn’t want to lose on our own patch.”