Rare win boosts Kompany’s belief
BURNLEY kept alive their slim hopes of avoiding the drop with their first win since December 23 to leave 10-man Brentford looking anxiously over their shoulders after a controversial game at Turf Moor.
Jacob Bruun Larsen’s early penalty and a second-half goal from David Datro Fofana secured the points for Vincent Kompany’s team, who are eight points from safety with nine games left.
But they had to live on their nerves after Kristoffer Ajer pulled one back for Brentford in the 83rd minute.
Kompany said: ‘We have to celebrate. When you’ve not been winning it becomes more difficult at the end. We did what we had to do in showing grit. We have total belief.’
Brentford, now just four points above the drop zone, after a 12th defeat in their last 15 Premier League games, thought they had equalised in added time when Shandon Baptiste’s cross floated into the net only for referee Darren Bond to rule that Ivan Toney had keeper Arijanet Muric.
In the ninth minute, after a VAR check, Bond had sent off Sergio Reguilon for pushing Vitinho in the back as he was about to shoot and awarded the penalty that Bruun Larsen converted. The dismissal was the quickest in the Premier League this season.
Burnley had to wait until the 62nd minute for their second when Fofana produced a cool finish after a slick six-pass counter-attack.
Bees boss Thomas Frank had no complaints about the early penalty, Reguilon’s red card or the disallowed goal but did claim his side should have had a penalty when Fofana appeared to wrestle Ajer to the ground.
‘I’m very proud of the players,’ he said. ‘What an effort, what a mentality. We were basically playing more than a whole match with added time against 10 players. And we were close to getting a point in the end.’