Football: SURPRISED STAN'S CUP RUNS OVER

BUOYANT Burnley pulled off a stunning victory at Hillsborough... and boss Stan Ternent pulled off a big surprise afterwards!

The ever-taciturn Ternent claimed not to know that the Clarets had been given a plum Worthington Cup home draw against top Premiership side Spurs.

He brought a smile from everyone when he said: "I genuinely didn't know. I've been working since 11.30am, so why should I?"

Ternent's three-striker formation had Terry Yorath's Owls on the back foot from the start.

Welsh international Gareth Taylor put the Clarets ahead after only seven minutes and goals from in-form winger Glen Little and finally Ian Moore completed this convincing victory.

Stan added: "That's nine games unbeaten. The boys did well and we took our chances.

"Playing with three up-front gives you the best of three worlds.

"Gareth is a classic centre-forward, Robbie Blake does his twisting and jinking and Mooro gives you electric pace.

"The last half hour, we dropped a little deep but it is all about trust. When you are defending a lead you expect a team to come at you especially at Hillsborough and that's what happened."

In that fever-pitch final half hour, Burnley's former Wednesday keeper Marlon Beresford played a blinder, keeping out Wednesday efforts time and again.

And Ternent revealed that he is working on keeping the month-long contract man on a longer-term deal.

Ternent had every reason to be pleased with the Clarets' start. Taylor's goal followed a quickly-worked free-kick - Taylor heading home when Graham Branch latched on to a ball which caught the Owls napping.

With 11 minutes on the clock after the break, Little showed he is getting back into form as he bagged his second goal in three games.

The mercurial winger showed just why a host of top clubs are tracking his progress. He cut in confidently from the right and his shot zipped into the corner.

More joy was to come for Burnley's highly vocal 3,000 fans when they went three ahead on the hour.

It was even more tasty in that the scorer was Ian Moore, son of Ronnie Moore who is in charge down the road at Rotherham.

Moore's strike was the essence of coolness as he took the ball through Wednesday's shattered defence and curled it brilliantly round keeper Kevin Pressman.

Wednesday belatedly began to fight back. Sub Simon Donnelly - brought on for striker Lloyd Owusu - seized on a half-chance to hammer a right-foot blast through the Burnley defence, giving Beresford no chance. But, despite the pressure, Wednesday were repelled.

Ternent, whose side lost their first four games this season, said: "All three of our goals were good. We created lots of chances and we took them well.

"Beresford played well, particularly later in the game but we managed to weather the storm.

"Hopefully our early bad form is behind us now. The players are doing pretty well. It's about scoring goals and creating chances and we could have scored even more."

True enough, but Wednesday could also have been on the scoresheet with better finishing and without coming up against Beresford.

The Owls' main menace came in the sizeable shape of Gerald Sibon who had a handful of chances.

Owusu also swung and shot in one move and went agonisingly close. But miss of the match award goes to Finnish international Shefki Kuqi who fluffed a close-range shot when he had time and space.

In the last half hour Wednesday threw everything forward and Sibon saw a close-range stabbed effort graze the bar, Kuqi had a rising shot tipped over by Beresford and Paul McLaren was denied when Beresford pulled off a super save at full stretch.

But for Burnley, Blake had a shot saved at point-blank by Pressman and Little saw one of his efforts blocked by Craig Armstrong.

Moore pounced on the rebound, but his effort was kept out by Pressman.

Wednesday boss Terry Yorath, whose side are now in the bottom three, admitted afterwards: "At the moment we're looking fragile."MAN OF THE MATCH GLEN LITTLE

Another telling contribution from the penetrating winger.

SHEFF WED: Pressman 7, Geary 6, Maddix 7, Bromby 6, Armstrong 6, Knight 6, McLaren 6, Quinn 7, Sibon 7, Kuqi 6, Owusu 6 (Donnelly 7).

BURNLEY: Beresford 7, West 7, Cox 6, Gnohere 6, Branch 7, LITTLE 8, Davis 7, Cook 6 (Armstrong 7), Blake 6, Taylor 7, Moore 6, (Papadopoulos 6).

MANAGER RATINGS: Yorath 6; Ternent 8.

REFEREE: T Parkes 7.ATTENDANCE: 17,004

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