10:01am Monday 14th December 2009
By Suzanne Geldard
BURNLEY manager Owen Coyle admitted he is being posed selection problems ahead of Wednesday’s visit of Arsenal, after his side came from behind to secure a point at home to Fulham.
It was the first time the Clarets had conceded the opening goal at Turf Moor this season when Bobby Zamora broke the deadlock five minutes into the second half.
Wade Elliott levelled with a stunning volley on the hour to make it five wins and two draws from eight home games so far.
But it was the introduction of David Nugent from the bench that turned the game for the Clarets, while Coyle admitted Kevin McDonald had been unfortunate to make way for returning captain Steven Caldwell after impressing on his full Premier League debut at Portsmouth last week.
“Both of those players will be disappointed not to start games.
"Every week they give you a dilemma in picking the team, and those are the dilemmas you want,” said the Scot.
“I don’t want to be picking the team because there are five or six that don’t deserve a place, I want to be picking the team because you’ve got 15 or 16 that should be in that 11.
“Kevin McDonald did very little wrong last week. I thought he played very well, as it happens, at Portsmouth.
"Nugent, if he’d been available, would have probably started at Portsmouth with the shape we were going to set up for that game.
“But we decided to go back to the team that played so well against Aston Villa here in the last game.
"That’s what we started with, but Kevin came on and did well and both him and David Nugent – with the performances alone they’re knocking the door down to start games, and those are the problems I want to have.
“But one of the people I talk to in the game says you should never ever pick your team on a Saturday night.
“Come Monday we’ll have a wee look at it, but there are going to be selection headaches.
“That’s why you’re employed to pick the best team for your football club to earn points.
“They did that with the one (against Fulham) – it could have been three – and we’ll look to try to address that for Wednesday.”
Although Coyle was disappointed to concede through a defensive lapse at a free kick for the third game in a row, he nevertheless felt Saturday’s 1-1 draw was a fair result.
And he praised his players’ character in coming from behind to earn a point, just as they had against Manchester City at Eastlands last month.
“I think any point in the Premier League is hard-earned, there’s no doubt about that, and again we had to do it the hard way coming from a goal down,” he said.
“It would have been easy for you to feel sorry for yourself at 1-0 down given that we've dominated the last two away games and not scored the first goal.
"But this group of players don't know that, they picked themselves up off the floor and really got at Fulham.
“We scored a great goal and on another day might have added to that late on.
"I think when you look at the balance of play maybe a draw is a fair reflection of the game, but there were obviously times within it – and Roy will probably feel that himself – that they could have got three points.
“Equally at 1-1 I felt we were the aggressors and really pushing on.
“We obviously committed a lot of players forward in the belief we would win the game.
“While you’re doing that then Fulham are always going to be a threat, but I felt we showed a lot of qualities today and ultimately it could turn out to be a very valuable point.”
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