Scott Parker's verdict on Burnley's late Wolves win and 'harsh' penalty call
Scott Parker felt his Burnley side were well worthy of their dramatic, last-gasp winner against Wolves.
The Clarets struck right at the death through substitute Lyle Foster to beat Wolves 3-2 and record their first back-to-back Premier League wins since April 2022.
The 90 minutes provided a whole range of emotions for Parker’s side, who took a two-goal lead through Zian Flemming’s first top flight goals before being pegged back with two goals right on the stroke of half-time.
The second-half could have gone either way, but Burnley decisively struck deep into stoppage-time to claim their first away points of the season.
“It was a good ending for us,” Parker said.
“To be honest with you, I thought we played really, really well today. I thought first-half we were very, very good and we scored two outstanding goals.
“We were disappointed at half-time to obviously come in at 2-2, so we needed to reset a little bit.
“Second-half, again, I thought we were superb and I thought we were superb in different aspects to our game. At times we had to survive and we had to defend really well.
“At times in the second-half we had our quality again and showed some nice bits, but it's fair to say the dynamics changed a little bit.
“We keep speaking about it, you need to stay in the game and we stay in the game and end up getting a late winner, which was massive for us.”
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The game flipped on its head before the interval, when Wolves snatched two late goals out of nowhere to peg Burnley back.
It made for a challenging half-time team talk for Parker, who minutes previously would have been on cloud nine.
“I probably knew where the players were at that moment, a psychological element to that at 2-0 and really have the game in our control,” he added.
“They're putting balls in our box, we defended really, really well in the game and then just all of a sudden, in an instant, it goes 2-2.
“I felt there was real disappointment at half-time and probably that feeling of, have we missed the chance here? But we reacted in the right way, suffered when we had to suffer second-half and, like I said, come out with the three points, which are huge for us.”
The whole dynamic of the game changed when Wolves were awarded a controversial penalty, with Josh Cullen being penalised for an apparently foul on the ankle of Wolves man Santiago Bueno.
“I thought it was a bit harsh, to be honest with you,” Parker said.
“Even the second, I don't think I'm clutching, but I felt like it was a foul on Axel [Tuanzebe]. Axel clears the ball and the attacker just runs straight into him.
“The penalty looked a little bit harsh. I felt like Josh got the ball. I've only really seen it really quickly and there was water on the laptop, so maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it felt to me.”
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