Burnley’s FA Cup hopes were blown apart yesterday at Turf Moor as League One Mansfield Town produced a fearless second-half comeback to win 2-1, turning a match that looked set for a routine home victory into one of the round’s biggest upsets.
Burnley started with the sort of urgency that suggested they wanted to settle the tie early, but the story of their afternoon quickly became wastefulness: they created enough in the first half to be clear, yet went in only one goal ahead and paid heavily once Mansfield found their rhythm after the break.
Mansfield, backed by a loud travelling support, grew into the contest with every minute, levelled through Rhys Oates, and then delivered the decisive moment when captain Louis Reed bent a sensational free-kick into the top corner with ten minutes left, sending the away end into celebration and leaving Burnley booed off at full time.
The opening exchanges were played at Burnley’s tempo and almost brought an immediate breakthrough. Inside the first few minutes, Ashley Barnes found himself with a golden chance from close range but couldn’t apply the finish, a miss that felt like a warning rather than a footnote. Burnley kept pressing and, on 21 minutes, they finally turned pressure into a goal: a sharp move opened up space on the right of the box, Josh Laurent showed composure to shift past pressure, sat the goalkeeper down with a feint, and rolled into an empty net for 1-0. At that point, it looked like Burnley had the control and the moments to turn it into a comfortable afternoon—especially when another chance arrived with Jacob Bruun Larsen appearing to have lifted the ball over the keeper, only for Kyle Knoyle to throw himself into a last-ditch goal-line clearance that kept Mansfield alive. That clearance mattered, because it preserved Mansfield’s belief and ensured the tie stayed on a knife-edge rather than slipping away before half-time.
Mansfield had their own early hint that they could hurt Burnley, briefly thinking they’d equalised in the first half before play was pulled back for a foul in the build-up, but the bigger momentum swing came immediately after the interval. Burnley began the second half flat, and Mansfield sensed it. First, Oates raced clear when a defensive slip opened the door, but he blazed over—another warning shot.
Moments later he made amends in emphatic fashion, attacking a deep cross and guiding a header into the bottom corner to make it 1-1 on 53 minutes. The equaliser changed everything. Mansfield’s pressing became braver, their midfield challenges landed with more bite, and Burnley’s earlier confidence faded into anxious, rushed play. Burnley made changes to regain control, but Mansfield were now the side playing with the greater conviction, forcing saves and blocks, and repeatedly winning second balls as the game grew more frantic.
The winner arrived in the way cup shocks so often do: one moment of execution, delivered under pressure, when legs are heavy and nerves are stretched. Burnley conceded a free-kick about 25 yards out, and Reed stepped up and whipped a strike that flew up and over the wall and into the top corner. It was the kind of hit that leaves the goalkeeper rooted and the stadium stunned, and it crowned a second-half spell in which Mansfield looked increasingly like they believed they could actually win it.
Burnley threw bodies forward late on, but their best opening to rescue extra time was squandered in stoppage time when a close-range chance was fired over—an ending that perfectly matched the day’s theme: too many Burnley opportunities, not enough Burnley ruthlessness.
After the match, Burnley manager Scott Parker made it clear he didn’t see team selection as the problem, insisting the game “should be practically out of sight” by half-time because of the chances Burnley failed to take. His sharper critique was reserved for what followed: he described the second half as “really poor,” pointing to a slow start after the break and a loss of grip that allowed Mansfield to grow in confidence, hold onto something tangible, and then take the tie away from them. He also acknowledged the wider consequence—Burnley had reduced pressure with a league win in midweek, but this result, in his own words, had “applied that noise even more,” accepting that criticism would naturally follow a defeat like this.
Mansfield’s boss Nigel Clough wasn’t the one delivering the post-match media reaction, with first-team coach Andy Garner speaking on the club’s behalf, and his message captured exactly how Mansfield approached the second half: play with “nothing to fear,” stop giving the ball away cheaply, and enjoy the challenge rather than be intimidated by the setting. Garner praised the group’s response after half-time, the bravery to keep playing, and the sheer significance of what they’d achieved—Mansfield reaching the fifth round for the first time since 1975 and carving out another slice of club history. He also underlined how the FA Cup can still reward belief and momentum: once Mansfield got level, the energy flipped, and Burnley never quite found the calm or precision to restore order.
