Bristol City 1 v 2 Burnley (Sky Bet Championship)
Burnley arrived at Ashton Gate to take on last season’s Sky Bet League One Champions and former manager Steve Cotterill. The Clarets had new signing Andre Gray making his league debut, just a week after turning down a £9 million pound move to Bristol City.
Bristol City started the stronger of the two teams and were on top in the first half. There first effort on goal came on eleven minutes when Marlon Pack’s left football shot from outside the area was well blocked by the Burnley defence.
City, continue to press and just three minutes later a Korey Smith pass found Reid at the edge of the box, but his right footed shot was again well blocked by the Clarets defence.
On eighteen minutes, following a Marlon Pack cross, Aden Flint’s header from the centre of the box is just too high and went over the crossbar with Tom Heaton beaten.
Bobby Reid was next to test the Burnley defence on twenty-five minutes when his right footed shot from outside the box was well saved by Tom Heaton.
From the resulting corner Aden Flint’s header from the centre of the box was again saved in the centre of the goal by Heaton. Just four minutes later, Aden Flint had another header saved by Tom Heaton, following an excellent cross by Bobby Reid.
On thirty-one minutes, Jonathan Kodjia right footed shot from the centre of the Burnley penalty area, went just wide of Heaton’s left hand post.
Against the run of play Burnley opened the scoring on thirty-four minutes, when Ben Mee’s powerfully headed home a David Jones corner to give the Clarets a 1-0 lead.
Bristol City looked to respond straight away as Jonathan Kodjia sent a right footed shot from the right side of the box which was well saved in the bottom right corner of his goal by Tom Heaton.
Burnley then extended their lead on forty minutes from another corner, it was the same move as the corner six minutes earlier and lead to the same result, apart from this time it was Michael Keane to head the ball home to make the half time score 2-0.
Burnley started the better in the second half and controlled the game for the first twenty minutes of the half, the first attempt of the half came from Andre Gray just before the hour mark, when his right footed shoot was blocked by the Bristol defence.
Just after the hour Steve Cotterill made a change to the side bringing on Wes Burns for Mark Little as he looked to change the system to get Bristol back into the game.
The changes had no effect and Burnley continued to control the second half, Bristol City did manage to get a goal four minutes into injury time. As Smith’s excellent cross found Jonathan Kodjia on the left side of the six yard box and he put the ball past Heaton to make the final score 2-1 to Burnley.
Speaking about the game Burnley manager Sean Dyche said, “Bristol City were really good in the first half and our goals came somewhat against the run of play. They were very impressive, but we showed the organisation and commitment to keep them out.
In the second half we were much better, without being particularly fluid we managed the game well and calmed it down. Sometimes you need to do that because you can’t be brilliant every week. Now we can use the time before the next game, knowing we already have good points on the board.”
Match Details
Burnley – Heaton, Darikwa, Keane, Mee, Duff, Kightly, Jones, Arfield, Boyd, Gray, Vokes (Subs) Gilks, Taylor, Vossen, Jutkiewicz,Hennings, Ward, Anderson
Bristol City – Hamer, Little, Williams, Flint, Ayling, Smith, Reid, Wilbraham, Pack, Kodija, Bryan (Subs) Burns, O’Leary, El-Abd, Robinson, Agard, Wagstaff
Goals – (Bristol City) Kodija (90+4) (Burnley) Mee (34), Keane (40)
Attendance – 15,002
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