It's been a bit of a battle at times

“The penalty was harsh,” he said. “It was a case of ball to hand rather than hand to ball but it is the sort of decision you tend to get playing at home.

“It was one of those decisions where if the referee wants to give a penalty, he does. A lot of decisions went Burnley’s way.” He should probably have taken a look at it on the video, with Phillips’ outstretched arm directing the ball the referee had no option.

Then, again looking for an excuse, he incredibly turned on the ball boys. “I was also unhappy with the multi-ball system used by Burnley, where their players seemed to get the balls quickly and ours didn’t, and I made the point to the referee during the game.”

He did though I think watch some of the match because he added, “Having said that, we again had enough chances to have won the match and the penalty was their only shot on goal. I dread to think how many shots we had on their goal, yet they get one penalty and that’s the game.”

The good news is that we won’t come up against this nasty piece of work again until the end of the season.

Steve Cotterill heaped praise on his players after this third successive win, and quite rightly given the current situation.

“It was an unbelievable result,” he claimed. “We showed fantastic character in the end when they put on Dichio, and Serioux was putting those throws in.

“We had worked on it on Friday because we knew he would play some part in the game. They are a real threat and, although we did it, there really is no way to defend them so you even try to avoid giving away a throw in your own half.”

Away from the bizarre thrown ins of Serioux he added, “We’re delighted with another clean sheet though and I thought we might have been a goal up in the first half, but it wasn’t to be.

“We kept going though and I couldn’t really see if it was a penalty or not (it was Steve), but I fancied Robbie to score.”

Looking back at November he said, “It has been a good month for us, but hard work also. We have had a lot of injuries and it’s been a bit of a battle at times.

“We had Yatesy on the bench again today and he doesn’t really want to be there, but we need him there at the moment so the sooner the injured players get back, the better.”