I was denied ‘blatant penalty’ in Burnley defeat, says Cardiff’s Gunnarsson

Cardiff midfielder Aron Gunnarsson felt he was denied a clear penalty in the Bluebirds controversial 2-0 defeat by Burnley on Saturday.The main talking point occurred just after half-time when referee Mike Dean awarded Cardiff a penalty for handball by Ben Mee only to reverse his decision after discussion with his assistants.But manager Neil Warnock felt a later challenge by Charlie Taylor on Gunnarsson was the most obvious of a number of penalty appeals, and the Icelandic midfielder agreed.He told Press Association Sport: It was a blatant penalty. He said I was looking for his leg, which I wasnt, Ive never done that in my life.Ive just looked at it again now. He caught me on my left leg and my ankle goes, so I dont know how Im meant to stand up to that. Outside the box its 100 per cent going to be given.When youre down there these decisions dont fall your way, simple as that. But we need to get going again. Another huge game on Tuesday against Brighton that we need to prepare for.After Saturdays results, Brighton appear the only side still within the sights of Cardiff, who are five points adrift of safety with five games left.A 5-0 loss to Bournemouth was the Seagulls fourth in a row, and Gunnarsson, Cardiffs longest-serving player, knows this is his sides big chance.He said: Were still obviously going to fight until the end, but its another big game, like this was.Obviously we came here for three points. It didnt happen unfortunately. I thought we battled hard. We fought hard for it. It was a scruffy game, but in the end we didnt do enough.The 29-year-old insists Cardiff do not need a sense of grievance to fuel them for the final five games, saying: You want to do it for your club, for your fans, for your team-mates, to prepare well and be at it every game.We need to focus on that. You cant get frustrated or fuelled by some decisions that didnt go our way. Football doesnt work that way.Burnleys victory, secured by two Chris Wood goals, moved Sean Dyches side 11 points clear of Cardiff and virtually guaranteed a fourth successive season in the Premier League.Warnock believes Cardiff can learn from Burnley, saying: Theyve been very fortunate here, but theyve earned the luck over the last few weeks. Theyve got results when theyve had to.You need to play teams at the right time and I think they have had that little bit of luck as well, but Seans done a fantastic job keeping them where they are. Weve got to look at them.I know they went down the first year he was here and theyve built the club back up and theyre doing really well. We dont want to go down, but the clubs stable now and it could look to the future.Both of Woods goals were created by 19-year-old winger Dwight McNeil, whose emergence has been the biggest success story of the Clarets season.Hes a real talent, said Dyche. Ive said it for weeks now, and a long time ago when he first came into the side. His calmness at the end to dribble out of trouble, hes a really good player and he can only mature.Its not been an easy turnaround for us to get to where weve got to. Theres still more to come but hes played a big part in that.(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
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