Sympathy For Burnley But This Is How It Should Be

It’s easy for us to sit and gloat after winning an away game 6-1 but it wasn’t so long ago that it was us that was on the receiving end of a bashing such as the one we dished out on Saturday.

In February 2003, Arsenal visited Maine Road and their Thierry Henry scored after four minutes with Denis Bergkamp providing the finish. By the 15 minute mark, The Gunners were 3-0 up with Pires and Henry scoring while Sol Campbell scored a fourth after 19 minutes.

It was a certain Patrick Vieira that rounded off the Arsenal scoring with a fifth eight minutes after half time before Nicolas Anelka pulled one back for the blues with three minutes remaining.

But that, I’m afraid, is where the sympathy ends. Saturday’s result was long overdue and to be fair, it was always going to be Burnley who would cop it. Let’s face it, we have a very good recent record at Turf Moor and have scored ten goals from the last two league visits there.

But a result like this at a struggling team is the way it should be for us. For too long, we have sat and watched top four teams, and even some of the mid table side, go to places like Burnley and thrash them while we have just managed a pitiful draw at best.

For once, we have watched United go somewhere and get beaten while we travel to the same ground and hammer the home side. It was just the result we needed and we now need to take this on and make sure we stay there.

Six away wins this season has helped push us to the brink of Champions League football. Imagine where we would have been is some of those away draws could have been wins?