All White Wood’s busy Burnley debut successful - coach

Chris Wood has made a quick debut for his new club, Burnley, and helped them earn a cup tie against his old club, Leeds United.

Burnley had control of their second round League Cup match against Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park, easing to 2-0 win, and have now drawn Leeds in the next round.

The All Whites striker only officially joined Burnley this week in a club record £15 million (NZ$26.4M) transfer.

He came on in the 44th minute for Burnley, replacing fellow striker Jonathan Walters who struggled after picking up an early ankle injury.

The 25-year-old was cleary eager to make his mark and produced an energetic performance where he was unlucky not to find the back of the net against Blackburn who now play in the third tier of the English game.

Wood had an instant chance to score but had his close-range shot blocked by a good save from Blackburn goalkeeper David Maya. Wood had another opportunity in the 58th minute but couldn’t keep his shot on target.

Wood kept busy, curling another shot over the crossbar from the edge of the area two minutes later and also had a header go wide. Raya again denied Wood from close-range in the 84th minute with another fine save.

Jack Cork opened the scoring in the 27th minute when he rose to head home a Robbie Brady cross. Brady got one himself with some classy finishing on the stroke of halftime.

Burnley are now unbeaten against their arch-rivals over the last seven local derbies that stretch into eight years. Burnley manager Sean Dyche was satisfied with Wood’s debut.

‘‘He’s only been in a couple of days, its a big game, he’s played in some derbies with Leeds, but it’s a big game for different reasons, not just the cup, with the local rivalry, but I thought he did well,’’ Dyche said after the match.

‘‘He had a very strong chance and the lad made a very good save, then second half he caught one a bit too clean, but he’ll get used to us, and learn how we play.’’

Wood could make his English Premier League debut for Burnley on Monday (NZ time) when they play Spurs at Wembley.

Newcastle United and Southampton were the Premier League casualties in the League Cup, Newcastle beaten 3-2 at home after extra time by Nottingham Forest and Southampton losing 2-0 at home to Wolves.