Dave Thornley has been on holiday yet again bit never-the-less manages to cobble up his thoughts on where Burnley are right now…

A week’s holiday in Northern Spain had caused me to miss Burnley’s drawn matches against Cardiff and Stoke, causing me to follow them via the unsatisfactory medium of the Internet.

Nevertheless, it was apparent from what little information I could glean that the troubling tendency of discarding a hard-earned lead had surfaced again, with the Clarets conceding late in both games to draw matches they would have expected to win.

It would be reasonable to conclude from these and other matches (West Brom, Preston, Blackpool, and Luton for example) that this Burnley team is short of a bit of steel. Perhaps a dominant voice on the pitch to organise, cajole and guide the team through those testing minutes when limbs are tired and concentration wavers; a Graham Alexander, a Joey Barton, or a Ben Mee, if you will.

Happily, the trend was broken in yesterday’s away fixture at Coventry, when Burnley maintained a lead established in the 39th minute when Josh Cullen’s intelligent and perfectly weighted through ball was instantly controlled by Nathan Tella who finished with neat precision in the corner of the Sky Blues’ goal when a lesser player could easily have bludgeoned the ball into row Z.

With Aro Muric missing through injury, Bailey Peacock-Farrell can spend his Sunday basking in the warm glow of a clean sheet, achieved with the aid of his crossbar which repelled the home team’s best effort on goal as pressure was applied in the last ten minutes.

Vincent Kompany was quite correct after the match to point out that Burnley need to put games like this beyond their opponent’s grasp to avoid those late traumas. He also emphasised the need to defend crosses with greater rigour; the equalising goals scored in the aforementioned games against West Brom, Preston, Blackpool, Cardiff and Stoke all came from that source as did Coventry’s header against the crossbar.

That said, a win, how so ever it was achieved, is always a cause for celebration and made more so with other results falling favourably, especially the defeats suffered by Norwich and Sheffield United, which left the Clarets in fourth place, just two points behind the automatic promotion places.

The next eight Championship fixtures, leading up to the World Cup break, will go a long way towards defining the shape of Burnley’s season; with Swansea at Turf Moor up next and home matches against Norwich, Reading, Rotherham, and Blackburn to follow interspersed with testing trips to Birmingham, Sunderland and Sheffield United.

Burnley are spirted enough and talented enough to come through those matches with their league position intact but the questions over their defensive organisation, their resolve and their fortitude need to be addressed and overcome.

A tester coming up on Saturday against the Swans I think, which will go a long way to giving Clarets fans a good idea of how our season will end up (TEC).

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