BURNLEY, England (Reuters) -Crystal Palace extended their unbeaten run in the Premier League to seven games after an entertaining 3-3 draw at Burnley on Saturday.
Christian Benteke struck twice for Patrick Vieira’s Palace, who led 3-2 at the break, but a stunning Maxwel Cornet volley earned the Clarets a share of the points at Turf Moor.
Palace are ninth in the table on 16 points from 12 games but the draw was little help for Burnley who are 18th on nine.
Benteke put Palace ahead in the eighth minute with a low shot from the edge of the box that sneaked in off the inside of the post.
But the Clarets fought back with a powerful Ben Mee header from a corner and then Chris Wood nodded home after James Tarkowski headed the ball across the area to the New Zealand international.
Palace looked dangerous with every attack and drew level through Benteke’s second after good work from Conor Gallagher, collecting a high ball, skipping past a sliding Charlie Taylor and then setting up the Belgian international.
The visitors then made it 3-2 three minutes before the interval when Marc Guehi drove home after Joachim Andersen’s header had been parried by Nick Pope.
Within four minutes of the second half Sean Dyche’s Burnley drew level in spectacular fashion — James Tarkowski flicked on a header to the back post and Cornet unleashed an unstoppable volley. It was the Ivorian’s fifth goal in seven starts.
Wilfried Zaha produced a fantastic volley of his own in the 63rd minute but Pope managed to get a slight touch on the ball to deflect it against the bar.
Burnley piled on the pressure in the final minutes and almost grabbed a stoppage-time winner but Palace keeper Vicente Guaita did well to keep out substitute Matej Vydra’s effort.
“It was a crazy, good game,” Vieira said. “I think both teams gave a different philosophy of the game, and tried to win it”.
Bur the former Arsenal midfielder was disappointed with the way his team conceded all three goals from set pieces.
“We need to improve that aspect of the game – in the modern game set-pieces are so important, and we will need to spend more time in training to deal with them,” he added.
Dyche was upset with referee Simon Hooper for not acting when Andersen pulled down Chris Wood with the Clarets striker through on goal and the visiting defender the last man.
“That is bizarre, I have seen it back, two hands across his chest and whoever is looking at that I have no clue how they can’t see he has brought him down,” he said.
“The referee had one of those games today, not to the level we would hope,” he added.
(Reporting by Simon Evans; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Ken Ferris and Pritha Sarkar)
