BURNLEY deserved their stroke of luck on Saturday when Manchester City’s late penalty appeal was waved away, according to goalkeeper Tom Heaton.
The 28-year-old, who admitted his head sank when Pablo Zabaleta went down under Ben Mee’s challenge in injury time, believes the Clarets have earned that luck in recent weeks and thinks they have deserved more than the six clean sheets they have picked up this term.
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It was the first time in 15 games that Burnley had kept the opposition out, and it came against last season’s champions, who had scored in 20 consecutive away games before Saturday.
“We feel we’ve perhaps deserved a few more but you don’t always get what you deserve and you have to keep working hard,” said Heaton.
“We worked really hard on Saturday. There was an element of luck with a few things, they were in and took a bad touch, the penalty decision has gone our way.
“Sometimes you need these things to go for you, but we’ve earned that over the last seven or eight games.
“We’ve been due a bit of a break.
“It feels like we’ve fallen on the wrong side of tight affairs.
“Sometimes we’ve lacked a bit of luck and other times we’ve not quite got the final details right.
“I said in the dressing room, we don’t want to keep harping on about it, but we’ve actually defended well in most of the games and played well in a lot of them.
“It was just we’ve been undone, we’ve been a little bit unlucky at times, it’s fine margins.”
The victory over City, in front of a full house at Turf Moor, has rejuvenated Burnley’s fight for survival and moved them to within a point of Sunderland, and Heaton has urged the side to use the win as a catalyst for the final nine games of the season.
“It’s a great win for the club,” he said. “It’s just important that we use it in the right manner and kick on again.
“It’s important to keep putting points on the board and keep moving it all forward.
“The main aim is to keep accruing those points and see where it takes us.
“It’s tight down there. There are a lot of teams in the mix.”
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