Vital Report – Burnley 2-2 Birmingham

Burnley’s Championship season continued with a draw at Turf Moor, the first home game back in the Championship, against Birmingham on Saturday.

Twice the Clarets came from behind to record a two-two draw with Birmingham, as sub Taylor scored a late equaliser with a freekick to equaliser a very soft penalty that had again put the Blues ahead of Toral’s early goal had been wiped out by Keane’s goal in the second half.

Still the illusive win at the start of the 2015/16 season hasn’t come for Burnley with the Clarets also denied, as Jutkiewicz had been on the opened day, a penalty when the striker looked like Morrison was fouling him.

Having seen Kightly, albeit it with a comfortable save, denied when Kuszack saved his freekick Birmingham then went ahead through Toral (10) who drilled a long clearance flicked on by Donaldson past Heaton low and hard.

Boyd was denied an equaliser by another good save with Jutkiewicz hitting the rebound straight at Kuszack with Birmingham twice threatening to add to the lead before the break. Firstly Cotterill curled an effort past Heaton but this struck the post with Burnley captain Heaton forced into a fine save to deny Gleeson from fully 30-yards.

Another Birmingham goal was threatened, with Kieftenbeld seeing what was a shot, that could have been turned home by Donaldson, who only had to get a touch with that miss punished when Kightly’s freekick into the box was flicked on by Vossen for Keane (51) to power a header home to level.

Birmingham looked to go ahead again when another long ball caught the Burnley defence squad but Donaldson couldn’t take the chance with Heaton saving well, however that man won – and ‘won’ is the key word – a very soft penalty when he went down under minimal contact from Darikwa with Caddis (63) blasting the penalty down the middle to make it two-one to the visitors.

Not that he could be faulted too much really but Darikwa almost made up for the penalty award against him with a fine ball across the box but no one could apply the finishing touch, which was exactly what Taylor (81) did with a fine freekick that he lifted up and over the wall, curling it into the back of the net via the underside of the crossbar, to make an instant impact off the bench and make it two-two.