Steve Cotterill - feeling the pressure?

Burnley have 14 games left to gain the 11 points needed to reach the 50 point mark that usually ensures survival, and with some very difficult fixtures coming up in those 14 games, the points need to be taken from mid-table sides at home such as Leicester City.

Let’s not forget, we have still to go to Colchester, Southend, Preston, Birmingham, Leeds and Sunderland, all very difficult away fixtures, and with the Clarets only picking up a very poor two points on the road since our last away win in October, it is not looking like many of the 11 points needed will be coming on our travels.

Our home games are vital, and with the exception of West Brom and Cardiff, all of our remaining home fixtures are against teams currently outside of the top ten. This is where we must pick up points.

We can’t win for love nor money at the moment, but a win on Tuesday would not only restore a bit of confidence and put an end to this awful run, it would also give us our first double over any team this season.

An Andy Gray header in our first away fixture of the season saw the Clarets come away from the Walkers Stadium with the points on a night where we played some pretty good stuff, but that all seems a long time ago now, as indeed does out previous victory

Leicester are buoyed by the news that Milan Mandaric has become the new owner, and he immediately set about touting Iain Dowie for the job along with other managers, not something you can imagine current manager Rob Kelly being too pleased about.

That’s Mandaric’s style though, and the positive vibes coming from the Serbian owner were expressed on the pitch on Saturday as they took apart Coventry City, beating the Sky Blues 3-0 who incidentally Iain Dowie has since taken over as manager, being appointed on Monday.

Geoff Horsfield bagged a brace, his first goals for Leicester since his deadline day loan move from Sheffield United. The victory ended former Clarets boss’ Adrian Heath’s association with Coventry, after Heath had staked a claim for the job, but a run of poor results persuaded the powers that be at Coventry otherwise.

It had taken Leicester just 26 minutes to stamp their authority on the game, with Welsh international Andy Johnson’s goal coming between Horsfield’s double. It is probably the last thing the Clarets needed, coming up against a team that won so convincingly at the weekend as well as the news of a new owner, but Burnley boss Steve Cotterill insists that he doesn’t read too much into these things in a recent radio interview.

With that, we move onto the radio interview, and what a strange one it was. Steve seemed very uneasy with a couple of the questions that were asked, turning one back on the Radio Lancashire interviewer, and the interview was cut short when Cotterill was asked if he had a message for the Burnley fans listening. Nobody seems sure of what went on in the interview, but the Clarets boss does sound as though he is under a lot of pressure at the moment.

Nobody can question the manager's passion, his voice at times in the radio interview sounding shaky. The man is clearly hurting and it is up to the players now to take the manager's passion out onto the pitch and start delevering. Too many players on Saturday could be accused of hiding at Molineux, especially in the first half. This is not what we need from them under the circumstances.

The manager is down, the fans are down and team confidence is at an all-time low. We really need to pick ourselves up, and nip this awful run in the bud before our season descends into a serious relegation battle. Let’s hope we can turn this round tomorrow night and banish any thoughts of the ‘R’ word.

Up the Clarets.