BURNLEY, England (AFP) - Croatia forward Eduardo da Silva inspired Arsenal to an FA Cup third round victory away to Burnley here on Sunday by making one goal and scoring the other in a 2-0 win at Turf Moor.

Premier League leaders Arsenal booked their place in Monday's fourth round draw, despite a brave challenge by the Championship outfit who had to play the final half hour with ten men due to the dismissal of Kyle Lafferty.

Although no fewer than six Premier League teams crashed out of the FA Cup on Saturday, with four of them succumbing to lower league clubs, Arsenal arrived at Turf Moor having never lost to a team from a lower division in the Cup under Arsene Wenger.

With a League Cup semi-final against North London rivals Tottenham looming on Wednesday, Wenger selected a mixture of youth and experience for the game against Owen Coyle's team.

Although the home side made Arsenal work hard for their victory, the result was never in doubt once Eduardo had put the Gunners ahead in the ninth minute.

Just three minutes earlier, though, Burnley had given Wenger's team a real scare when the Northern Irish youngster Lafferty rattled the crossbar with a close-range header.

Midfielder James O'Connor had carved the Arsenal defence open with a neat pass to Andy Gray and the Scotland forward's cross was met powerfully by Lafferty at the far post. Goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was well beaten, but the Germany international was saved by the woodwork.

As so often happens when a minnow faces a giant in the Cup, the missed chance was to prove costly and Brazil-born Eduardo punished Burnley with his sixth goal in four games.

The Burnley defence reacted too slowly when Kolo Toure lofted a throughball to Eduardo from the centre-circle and the pre-season signing from Dinamo Zagreb held off the challenge of Burnley captain Steven Caldwell before guiding the ball past keeper Gabor Kiraly.

Coyle's team did not go under, however, and they fought back by using wingers Lafferty and Wade Elliott to good effect, stretching the Arsenal defence as wide possible.

Both Gray and Robbie Blake went close after good work from Elliott on the right flank.

Arsenal continued to threaten, though, and it required a goal-line clearance from O'Connor in the 21st minute to keep out Eduardo's close range header.

Eduardo was unlucky on that occasion, but he missed a golden chance to put the game beyond Burnley six minutes into the second-half after working himself free following a one-two with Nicklas Bendtner.

In an almost identical position to when he scored the opener, but without the attentions of Caldwell, Eduardo somehow shot wide of Kiraly's right-hand post when he seemed certain to score.

Burnley's hopes of pulling off the shock of the round ended, however, when Lafferty was red-carded on the hour for a studs-up challenge on Gilberto.

It was a debatable decision, but it was certainly a dangerous tackle that left referee Alan Wiley with little choice but to dismiss the 20-year-old.

That blow merely teed up Burnley for the knock-out punch, which was delivered in the 75th minute when Bendtner made it 2-0 to Arsenal after latching onto Eduardo's pass.