O’Neill’s Burnley Verdict

Martin O’Neill was delighted with our second half performance, but agrees we were way too sluggish in the first 45.

Today was purely a game of two halves, but I think I’ll ignore the first like Monny, and just concentrate on what he calls our ‘electrifying’ second half display.

Speaking on the Official Site following the game Monny was rightly chuffed with the final 45, but admits we were very slow to start and that was disappointing – especially given the week we face.

‘I thought we started pretty slowly. We didn’t get into gear, we were sluggish. In a game where expectation was very high, with us trying to win, to come from behind was very pleasing.’

Again just like Palace and other games this season, one ‘credit’ to take these days is when we are playing like rank amatuers we do still keep going, and we keep fighting and today once our equiliser went in you could almost see the relief on the players, and they relaxed and started actually playing like we know they can. The rest is history.

Monny was also delighted to see us kill Burnley off when we got the upper hand, actually destroying teams has been a problem of ours so for us to really stamp our authority on the match and build up a cushion was pleasing to see for a change.

‘It was great. The goals we got, the movement was terrific and also the ability to finish them off, which has not been our strongest point in quite some time.’