Scott Brown has hailed his Fleetwood Town side as 'absolutely unbelievable' as they suffered late FA Cup heartbreak at Burnley.
The Cod Army created history by reaching the fifth round for the first time ever and they took the English Championship leaders all the way before losing a goal in the 90th minute. The English League One side had been reduced to ten men before the half-time interval and defended admirably at Turf Moor but in the end just couldn't hold out.
Vincent Kompany and his high-flyers - who look certain for a return to the EPL come the end of the season - will now face Pep Guardiola and Manchester City. It will be a massive welcome home for the Clarets boss after his time as a player at the club. He played for City from 2008 to 2019 with the club legend ready for a return to the Etihad in the quarter-final stage. It's a glamour tie Celtic hero Brown would have loved to have landed but he couldn't be more proud of his troops as he heaped special praise on the noise from the travelling support who sang and danced their hearts out. The players went straight over to the away end with the fans' appreciation throughout handing his team that extra confidence.
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Speaking to the Fleetwood official website, he said: “It’s an absolutely unbelievable performance by the lads. It’s hard coming here, especially when you get a man sent off, but these things happen. They’ve got a great game plan, and good players as well. You can see why they are top of the Championship.
“The lads defended well, putting the bodies on the line. I thought Lynchy [Jay Lynch] was exceptional yet again. Our distribution when we did have the ball, we tried to play but the press is extremely good.
“They’re going to have a lot of the ball, but we tried to cash in on the counter-attack but except that I thought the first half we coped well.
“To get this far and to take them to the 90th minute, was exceptional from the lads. This is a hard place to come to, especially with 10 men. For us to defend as well as we did and work as hard as we did, for 45 minutes with 10 men: I’m extremely proud of these lads.
“It’s not about me, it’s about them and how well they’ve done - their willingness and desire to go all the way. I don’t know if we’d have managed another 30 minutes if it’d had gone to extra time, but no it’s a fantastic performance.
“It shows you what they can do. We’ve come to a top championship side, they understood the gameplan. You can’t be any prouder of the lads to come here and play as we did.”
He continued: “It’s got to be a confidence builder knowing they can defend that way; we just need to learn to make sure we do it for 95 minutes.
“The work rate of the lads, the understanding of the shape, when we knew, we weren’t going to have much of the ball. The chances they created were more from 10-15 yards out.
“Our fans were the only ones I heard for 90 minutes, from start to finish. It sounded like we had 20,000 here - their support is great for us, it spurs the lads on.
“It gives them the confidence and even at the end, they were still singing and dancing and it shows you the love the lads have got for the fans going straight over to them.”
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