Manchester City Res 3 Burnley Res 2
Wednesday March 11th, 2009, 2.00pm
Regional Sports Arena
City: T Johansen, T Smith, Helan, Carter, Tse, Paldan, Cieslewicz, Mitchell, Redshaw, Guidetti, Poole.
Unused subs: Kapsalopodas, E Johansen, Frater, Paris, Grandison.
Burnley: Woodhead, Chagger, McEneaney, Anderson (Harvey, 75), Brown, Lynch, King (Devanney, 76), Kay, Fletcher, Knowles (Newman, 72), Craggs.
Unused subs: McDonald, Williams.
Goals: 0-1 Knowles (10), 1-1 Guidetti (15), 1-2 Fletcher (48), 2-2 Poole (67), 3-2 Redshaw (71).
Bookings
City: Helan (38).
Burnley: Craggs (44).
Referee: I Smedley.
The Match
City’s young reserves twice battled back from a goal behind to triumph with a two-goal salvo in five second-half minutes in a hard-fought Totesport.com League West Division clash at the Regional Sports Arena.
Prolific scorer Jack Redshaw, hardly the tallest player on the pitch, rose high at the far post after 71 minutes to deny Burnley any reward and get City back to winning ways after their reverse at Rochdale.
The young Blues got off to a disastrous start when they failed to adequately defend Burnley’s first corner after ten minutes and allowed Dominic Knowles to knock the opener past goalkeeper Tobias Johansen.
But five minutes later the home side were level when John Guidetti, whose duel with defender Chris Lynch was a feature of the first half, had an easy task to finish off a smart run and pull back by Adrian Cieslewicz.
Burnley threatened to snatch the lead back before the interval. Lynch was not far away with a towering header and Wesleigh Fletcher, put through by midfielder Adam Kay, fired an inviting opportunity wide of the post.
City eventually fell behind again three minutes into the second half when Chris Anderson slipped a pass through for Fletcher to beat Johansen while Blues defenders looked for an offside flag that never came.
James Craggs, who had been booked for a lunging tackle on Igor Paldan, wasted a chance to stretch Burnley’s lead in a breakaway before City equalised again with a fierce effort from James Poole, just back from injury.
The left winger caught his shot perfectly when Tom Smith’s free kick was only half cleared by Burnley, and worse came for the visitors as Jeremy Helan’s fine overlap play led to Guidetti’s centre finding the eager Redshaw.
