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"We’re very disappointed after getting ourselves in the lead and being in control of the game. I can’t believe what happened after the first 25 minutes as we should never have let that slip, but we did and to be fair to Burnley they deserved to win.
"Little came on but we were surprised he wasn’t playing from the start, he’s a good player and we couldn’t handle him it’s as simple as that.
"They deserved the victory after the way they played in the second half but it was a game we were in control of and it’s my job to look at what happened.
"We rested Teddy Sheringham but the rest of them were injured and we had to make adjustments but there’s no excuse, we should have gone on and won the game but credit to Burnley, they played exceptionally well. They went for it and we said at half time it was going to be hard but we simply didn’t react to it."
It was a proud and happy Stan who spoke after the game as he contemplated a 4th round tie.
"We showed tonight we are as good as most teams in our division and I am hopeful we can crack on. We have a massive match on Saturday against another of the front-runners in the league but I know what we can do if we play to our full potential.
"We were up against a very good team and my players did extremely well. We had a couple of breaks but Robbie hit the post and we did create some good chances.
"I didn't shout at them at half time, I just talked to them normally. I told them they had done well in the last bit of the first half and they needed to believe in themselves. We needed to push Paul Weller higher up on Clemence and that helped us.
"Robbie Blake has got a good shot with both feet. I knew when I signed him people said that I'd wasted another £1million but he is now showing he is a very good player.
"That was a very good Tottenham team and Glenn will have his reasons for naming the side he did. But they are in the top five in the Premiership and he knows what he was doing.
"It is not so bad when you have only got to score two to win. It’s good to beat Spurs and we’re in the next round which is a bonus for the Chairman and directors."
Burnley punish profligate Spurs
Martin Woods (The Times)
BURNLEY recovered from a one-goal deficit and all the early signs of a crippling inferiority complex to send Tottenham Hotspur, last year’s Worthington Cup runners-up, crashing out in a compelling third-round tie at Turf Moor. Two second-half goals from Robbie Blake and Steve Davis earned the Nationwide League first division team a deserved victory after Gus Poyet had given Glenn Hoddle’s team, fifth in the Barclaycard Premiership, a first-half lead.
Stan Ternent, the Burnley manger, could not resist the temptation to remind his players about the era when the club shared the top table with the Tottenham team of Danny Blanchflower in the 1960s. Ternent had, after all, played against them as a ruddy-faced teenager for Burnley. If his wistfulness was forgiveable, his team’s recent performances have been less so, a 6-5 defeat last week away to Grimsby Town illustrating their Jekyll-and-Hyde nature.
It is a different era now, though, from Tottenham’s glory, glory days and Burnley, assembled at a cost of around £4 million, were forced to chase shadows as the Premiership side, with a market value approaching £50 million, threatened to overwhelm the home team with their incisive play.
Les Ferdinand had blazed a volley over the bar before Poyet rose unchallenged to power home a header from Stephen Carr’s corner in the seventeenth minute. Matthew Etherington, on the left wing, was embarrassing Dean West, while Carr’s overlapping runs on the other flank regularly left Burnley in disarray.
West had tested the referee’s patience to the limit in the opening exchanges with challenges on Etherington before Dermot Gallagher, the referee, finally booked him shortly before half-time. By then, a curling shot from Etherington was uncomfortably close to the target and only a last-ditch tackle by Lee Briscoe on Ferdinand prevented another goal.
The arrival of Glen Little, in the 27th minute, saw Burnley reborn. Why Little, so often the catalyst for Burnley’s good moods, had been left on the bench is a mystery; his impact was immediate. Gareth Taylor volleyed Blake’s cross inches past the far post just before the break. It was merely a taster of the abrupt transformation in the game.
Blake’s equaliser in the 57th minute, a shot deflected past Kasey Keller, was just reward for the siege that Burnley had laid to the visiting team’s goal. Their next attack, from a corner, saw Davis head home past a statue-like defence. "I made the change and Glen just gave us that extra something," Ternent said. "We started to pass the ball. They’re a very good side, but we got a few breaks towards the end of the match which made the difference. Since the collapse of the television deal, it’s left most of the teams in the Football League with a shortfall, so getting past Spurs is an added bonus for the chairman and the board."
Shell-shocked Tottenham had a narrow escape when the mercurial Blake dribbled into the penalty area and fired past Keller only for the ball to rebound off his post.
Suddenly, it was dozy, dozy Tottenham and glory, glory Burnley.
"I’m very disappointed after getting the lead and being in control," Hoddle, the Tottenham manager, said. "I can’t believe what happened after that. Little is a good player and we couldn’t handle him. The bottom line is they deserved the victory. Some of my team changes were forced through injury, but there’s no excuses. I can’t understand why we played like we did in the second half."
Blake, at £1 million Burnley’s joint record signing, has that perky guile when on song that makes him the sort of player that would have fitted into the Tottenham side of the 1970s. Last night he was rampant. "When he (Blake) came here he had a double hernia, and it was doom and despondency, and Stan’s wasted a million," Ternent said. "But he’s shown he’s a great player and there’s more to come."
It was Robbie Keane who epitomised Tottenham’s second-half dysfunction when, one-on-one with Marlon Beresford late on, he merely lobbed the ball into the grateful Burnley goalkeeper’s arms. The Ireland striker compounded Tottenham’s misery when, in injury time, his shot struck the crossbar.