Lyle Foster scores stunning first goal for Burnley

Bafana Bafana emerging star Lyle Foster scored a cracking first goal for new club Burnley in a 3-0 win against Wigan Athletic on Saturday that kept the Clarets on course for promotion to the English Premier League.

Foster was brought on in the 63rd minute by coach Vincent Kompany to replace Ashley Barnes at Turf Moor, and scored from a superbly taken strike from an acute angle on the left of the box to make it 3-0 in the 76th.

Burnley's new SA striker was making his sixth league appearance, all off the bench, since joining the Championship team from Belgian side KVC Westerlo in January.

The Orlando Pirates youth product put in a bright showing, capped by an excellent goal in a win that kept Burnley top of the league on 80 points from 36 games, 13 ahead of second-placed Sheffield United.

“I came on, I had the chance a bit earlier where I turned and shot and it went a bit wide,” Foster said .

“I was kind of thinking to myself, ‘When's the first one going to come?’. I saw the ball played by Annass [Zaroury] over to Michael [Obafemi] and it dropped nicely and I thought let me kick it as hard as I could, and luckily for me it went into the back of the net.”

He said when the ball went in he felt “pure joy”.

“So happy it went in, happy to celebrate with the crowd at Turf Moor and my teammates, so perfect day for me.”

The striker’s father, Lance Foster, has been in the UK watching him play for the past few weeks, and was in the ground on Saturday.

“It was lovely to share this moment with him,” Foster said.

Foster, 22, left Pirates in January 2019 to join Monaco and has turned out for a succession of clubs since, including Cercle Brugge and Vitoria de Guimaraes.