Owen Coyle talked himself hoarse after Burnley's audacious victory in the Carling Cup against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. One of the richest clubs in the world were knocked out on penalties by one of the lowest supported teams in the Coca-Cola Championship.

Owen Coyle talked himself hoarse after Burnley's audacious victory in the Carling Cup against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. One of the richest clubs in the world were knocked out on penalties by one of the lowest supported teams in the Coca-Cola Championship.

Burnley's feat in reaching the quarter-finals of the competition was all the more remarkable considering they recovered from an early Didier Drogba goal and finished the match reduced to 10 men after Steven Caldwell's ordering off.

Brian Jensen, the Burnley goalkeeper, was the hero, saving penalty kicks from Wayne Bridge and Jon Mikel Obi. Coyle, though, identified Caldwell as the real inspiration behind Burnley's rejuvenation and expressed his surprise that his captain and centre-back did not merit a place in the Scotland squad for next week's friendly against Argentina.

While his younger brother Gary has flourished in partnership with Stephen McManus for Celtic and Scotland, Steven earned the last of his four international caps against Trinidad and Tobago in 2004.

The siblings graduated from the Newcastle United youth academy but while Gary has prospered since joining Celtic from Hibernian, Steven has only recently found contentment after a nomadic career including spells at Blackpool, Bradford City, Leeds United and Sunderland.

"He has been immense since the day I walked in the door," said Coyle. "I have to say I am surprised he was not included for the Argentina game because he has been brilliant all season. He is my captain and leader and has been outstanding."

Coyle was a busy man yesterday. His phone rang non-stop from newspapermen across the country, while television stations craved soundbites on the magnitude of the result and the less edifying episode of Drogba being struck by a coin and throwing the missile back towards the visiting support.

"The result is big news and it is great to be part of it," he said. "Nobody envisaged we would knock them out. For it to happen, we needed three things to go in our favour: we needed them to be slightly off their game, we needed to be at the top of ours and, of course, we needed a bit of luck.

"I think the great thing is we came from behind after conceding a really classy goal. The worst thing they could have done was feel sorry for themselves and then they could have been on the receiving end of a hammering, as so many teams have done against Chelsea. Instead, I told them to go for it and that is what they did."

The result has helped improve the image of the new crop of Scottish coaches to have been tempted across the border. Bobby Williamson and Craig Levein are the most recent examples of managers who left Scotland with lofty reputations only to encounter difficulties in the English lower leagues.

"There are different circumstances," said Coyle. "Nobody will convince me otherwise that Craig Levein is a terrific manager. He went to Leicester City and had to slash the wage bill. The one thing he never got was time and that can make all the difference."

Coyle is fast approaching his first anniversary at Turf Moor. As well as taking Burnley into fifth place in the Championship, he has also proven to be an astute negotiator of the transfer market.

He has improved the overall quality of his team and made the club a net profit of £2m, largely thanks to the £3.4m transfer of Kyle Lafferty to Rangers.

Ironically, on the same night Burnley were making history in the cup, the Northern Ireland internationalist endured another turbulent night in a 0-0 draw against Motherwell.

Burnley have stayed in London to prepare for the weekend's league game against Queens Park Rangers and Coyle did his best to ensure a monumental win was not overshadowed by the coin-throwing controversy.

"It is a shame and that is one of the things that happens in football now," he said. "We don't talk about the football when we should be talking about the quality of players on show week-in, week-out in the Premier League and the Championship. That is what we should be talking about.

"There was obviously an incident and I think that takes away from the game."

As nothing will take away the memory of when Coyle clattered Chelsea.