Published: Thursday, 21st January, 2010 9:00am

Karacan on Burnley revenge mission

by Anthony Smith

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JEM Karacan believes it's "payback" time for Burnley for ruining his chance of playing in the Premier League with Reading.

Saturday's FA Cup fourth round fixture will be the first time the clubs have met since the Clarets triumphed over the Royals in last season's Championship play-off semi-finals.

And it seems a number of players are out for revenge this weekend, none more so than Karacan.

The Turkey under-21 midfielder, who was excellent in the third round victory over Liverpool, declared: "It will be nice to play against another Premier League team and I know a few of the lads want to get one over Burnley, and I certainly do.

"We want to do them, there's a bit of payback to come for last year and all the lads are up for it.

"We've beaten Liverpool and on our day we can beat any team. We've proved that the other week.

"All the lads are working hard in training and the guys out of the team are working their socks off to get back in. We're all being pushed hard to keep our shirts."

The Clarets, of course, went on to claim their place in the top-flight last season under Owen Coyle. But Coyle has since joined Bolton and has been replaced by ex-Sheffield Wednesday boss Brian Laws.

And Karacan has another good reason for wanting to knock Burnley out - he used to support their rivals Blackburn and his brother, Shener, has a season ticket at Ewood Park.

"My brother has been on the case," he explained. "He's away for the game sadly, but it would be nice to get a win for him.

"I'm sure that would make him happy. He's not a massive fan of Burnley so it would be nice to do one over them."

Meanwhile, Karacan says he has stopped looking at the Championship table with Reading stuck in the bottom three,

"We're trying not to look at the table," he explained. "If you look at the table it can get in your head a bit, so we'll just try to take each game as it comes.

"We are in a dog-fight and everyone is tight together, which you've got to be."

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