I don’t know how long it will be up, but there’s 14 minutes of highlights from the Carling Cup 4th round victory over Burnley in the video at the foot of this post.

Downing’s extra time goal was a worthy winner (it certainly made up for his atrocious earlier effort), a stinging effort from the edge of the box, and Heskey’s opener was an example to Reo-Coker on how to put those square balls away, but question marks remain.

With John Carew, the only striker in the original line-up, withdrawing during the warm-up, reportedly through illness, and two strikers on the bench in Heskey and Delfouneso, it has to be questioned why Stephen Ireland was chosen to replace the big man.

Burnley’s equaliser was a defensive slip up from a set piece. Carlos Cuellar may have been Man of the Match, but Clarke Carlisle was his man and he switched off. In the end, Carlisle was able to get his head on the ball despite attention from Heskey and Lichaj, who left the players they were tracking to help out.

It happens, but late capitulations, seemingly coming from lapses in concentration, are close to becoming habitual. Not the best of habits, but according to almost all reports, on the balance of play during the 2nd half, it was no less than Burnley deserved.

If you stick with the video to the end you’ll find Manish and Mark Bright discussing Brad Friedel’s performance, which seemed worthy of discussion, but his selection raises all sorts of questions about the future of Brad Guzan and, given Friedel’s age, the longer term strategy for that position at the club. Something to keep half an eye on I think.

As for scoring goals, despite the lack of recognised striker on the pitch, there were plenty of opportunities squandered and it looks like a little extra confidence would go an awful long way. Sidwell’s header from Albrighton’s delicate cut back in extra time epitomizes this I think (build up starts around 8:30 in the video). With a little more expectation of scoring he’d have attacked that and put his head through the ball. Instead, he tried to glance it on, but failed to get enough on it (admittedly, he had to stretch a little for it) and it spun harmlessly wide.

It’s one of those occasions where the player overthinks things, instead of acting on instinct, and acting instinctively comes from confidence. Reo-Coker, too, has missed a number of nailed on opportunities to score recently, but has almost seemed to have too much time to think about what he’s going to – and on a couple of occasions he’s done everything right except the final execution – but we’ve never seen that steely eyed determination of someone who knows they’re going to put it away.

Hopefully we’ll have one of those games soon when everything clicks into place, the early chances go in, the players relax a little and regain some confidence and then the floodgates will open.

I can’t think of a better day for that to happen than this Sunday.