Draw needed to join Newcastle in Cup knockout
Burnley’s hopes of reaching the last 16 of the Premier League Cup suffered a major blow last Friday when we were beaten 3-0 by Colchester United at the Weston Homes Community Stadium, but we’ve been given a lifeline this afternoon with Swansea City failing to beat Newcastle United.
The first team injury list had its effect on the under-23s at Colchester with Michael Duff forced to go into the game without the services of Aiden O’Neill (pictured), who was a first team substitute on the following day at Swansea, and both Oliver Younger and Dwight McNeil; they both travelled to South Wales with the first team.
A win would have seen us close to qualifying and that qualification would have been guaranteed this afternoon when Swansea could only draw against Newcastle with the Geordies’ late equaliser confirming they will take one of the two places in the knock out stages this season.
As it stands, all four teams in the group have one game remaining. Newcastle, with ten points, will finish in the top two whilst Colchester, whose only points have come in that win against us, are out of the running.
We could still win the group but to ensure we finish second we will need a point when we play Swansea in our final game but a defeat will see Swansea take that second place.
Those two games will both be played on the same date, two weeks from now on Monday 26th February. Newcastle’s home game against Colchester will be played at the Northumberland FA with a 1 p.m. kick off and our game starts an hour later at Curzon Ashton’s Tameside Stadium.
Newcastle are the third team to be certain of going through. They join Group F leaders Leicester and Exeter who beat Sunderland yesterday to go top of Group H and claim their place.
The Group Tables are updated as results are confirmed and can be found within U23/U18 Stats on the top menu.
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