Dave Thornley gets his mojo on.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Dave Thornley is almost wet with excitement. Me too# I usually edit a word or two, but this piece sums up the Clarets current situation perfectly and I cannot improve on it. Go Dave, go!

All successful football teams at whatever level, share certain characteristics: they have the ability to dig deep within themselves to win tough games, they can produce moments of high quality when it matters the most, and at need, they can call upon a mastery of the ?dark arts?.

During their Good Friday victory over Watford at Vicarage Road, Burnley were obliged to call upon each of those qualities in order to emerge with all three points and place themselves on the front row of the promotion grid, with a clear road to the Premier League ahead of them.

They dug deep to overturn the setback of conceding an early goal; they produced moments of high quality in the form of James Trafford?s fingertip save to turn a goal-bound strike against the post, immediately followed by CJ Egan-Riley?s sweeping Hoddle-esque pass to Jaidon Anthony on the left wing, and Zian Flemming darting between two Watford defenders to head in Anthony?s cross.

A fluent passage of play demonstrating varied aspects of footballing skill and one which arrested the momentum of the match and turned it the Clarets way.

As for the dark arts, Burnley?s agent provocateur was not a snarling Ashley Barnes, nor a provocatively gesturing Hannibal; rather it came in the fresh faced, clean-cut shape of Zian Flemming, who tangled with Watford?s Sissoko as they competed unsuccessfully to meet Conor Roberts? cross before it was headed in by Josh Brownhill for the winning goal.

Sissoko took exception to Flemming?s presence and perhaps some comments and shoved the Burnley striker as they lined up for the restart. Flemming?s reaction was a touch theatrical but earned Sissoko a red card. Watford then promptly lost their collective heads, and a second red card followed, this time for the Hornet?s goal scorer, Kayembe.

Against nine men, Burnley managed the remainder of the game with few alarms, save for a late Trafford stop and came away with the three points which equalled a club record unbeaten run of thirty league games and ensures that they go into Easter Monday?s home fixture against Sheffield United with a five-point cushion over the Blades.

Win tomorrow, and Burnley will have secured promotion beyond mathematical conjecture. A phenomenal achievement for Scott Parker and his players ? our players- our team. Are you ready? Here we go!

Editor?s note: Let?s get behind our lads, raise the Turf Moor roof and then party likes it?s May, 1987.

[outwoodclaret]

The build up to the Watford game was really causing me concern. True we were five points ahead of the Blades before this fixture but Watford are the type of physical side we have problems with. Even Kompany’s men in a stand out season failed to beat the Hornets losing 1-0 away and scraping a last minute equaliser in the return fixture. Another 1-0 defeat was very much on the cards as the Clarets went to sleep and failed to deal with an early cross into the box to Doumbia whose header was just firm enough to beat Trafford’s despairing dive. It looked very much as though Watford would grab a second goal before the tide turned just before half-time. If we had lost at Watford the Blades would have been just two points adrift ahead of our Easter Monday shoot out. As it is they remain five adrift and know they must win at Turf Moor to stand any realistic chance of overhauling the Clarets.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

We are resilient.