LONDON (AFP) – An embarrassing League Cup exit to Championship side Burnley was made even worse for Chelsea following an admission from striker Didier Drogba that he had thrown a coin at opposition supporters.
Burnley fans threw coins at Drogba after he scored for Chelsea in the first half of Wednesday's fourth round tie at Stamford Bridge and the Ivory Coast international responded by picking one up and hurling it towards the away supporters.
Drogba later apologised following his side's 5-4 penalty shoot-out loss, which followed a 1-1 extra time draw, but he is certain to face an FA investigation.
"This is something I want to make clear. I tried to celebrate the goal and I received some things at me," Drogba said. The big mistake I did was to throw it back so if someone was hurt I just want to apologise for it.
"This is not something I should show in a football match and I want to apologise. It was an incident in the heat of the moment and I regret it. It was just a mistake and nothing more."
Drogba had also been booked for celebrating his first half opener in front of the away support at the Shed End, but Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari insisted he knew little of the incident.
He said: "I haven't talked to Didier about any problem. I saw the referee give him a yellow card and I saw the police in the corner but I don't know what happened."
Drogba's opener was cancelled out with 20 minutes remaining by Burnley substitute Ade Akinbiyi.
Chelsea could have won it in normal time but Drogba's replacement Franco Di Santo fired wide in the final minute with only goalkeeper Brian Jensen to beat.
Defender Alex missed from close range in extra time, which also saw Clarets captain Steven Caldwell sent off, and Jensen went on to save from Wayne Bridge and John Obi Mikel to seal victory in the shoot-out.
Scolari blamed his players for missing too many chances. He said: "We had four or five chances and scored only one goal. If we had shown more quality we would have won for sure. But I am not angry because they tried. Maybe I don't give good lessons."
Burnley boss Owen Coyle was delighted with his players. He said: "To come and win the game shows the magnitude of the effort they put in. Over the piece we deserved it.
"Their goal was real quality from a world-class player but I felt at half-time we could stay in the game. We scored a very good goal and could have added to that."
Coyle praised Jensen for his penalty shoot-out prowess. He said: "Brian has been excellent all season. We thought he would save at least one if it went to penalties."
Chelsea had only themselves to blame for squandering so many chances. They should have scored early on when Paulo Ferreira's cross from the right fell perfectly for Deco but the Portugal play-maker headed across goal and wide from just six yards.
Jensen did well to deny Salomon Kalou after Drogba had put him through, with the Dane sticking out an arm to stop the Chelsea man from taking the ball round him.
Drogba struck in the 27th minute as he got past one defender to reach the penalty box and, before anyone else could intervene, curled a right-foot effort beyond Jensen to record his first goal of an injury-hit season.
But Ade Akinbiyi levelled the score in the 69th minute. Chris Eagles was the architect with a run into space on the left of the box but Carlo Cudicini should have done better than to parry the resulting shot into the substitute's path.
Akinbiyi made no mistake right in front of goal despite the presence of defenders and the 6,000 away fans behind the goal celebrated joyously.
That set the stage for Jensen's penalty heroics.
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