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"We knew they would come out in the second half and have a go and so I said not to let them in but that's what they did. In the first half we played some really good football and then it took of bit of battling. I knew Stan would not let me off the hook that easily.
"There were a few nerves when they pulled back a second but I thought they weren't going to lie down. There crowd got behind them but I thought our supporters were fantastic. It was a difficult decision to bring Dean Sturridge back after injury but he scored the goals."
Stan tried to ignore the referee too and said after the game,
"Overall we had a lot of chances and we need to take the second half performance and start with that tempo. I think we were too spread in the first half and we gave poor goals away. At 3-0 down you are playing for pride but you need to play for pride from the first whistle.
"I was happy with the second half but in the first half we were off the pace. Football is a funny game and things don't always go the way you want. The spirit of my lads is not in question and there are a lot more wealthy clubs than Burnley in this division so you have to give the lads credit.
"It was nice to see a full house and our supporters were fantastic today. It's a long time since it has been like that."
He didn't completely ignore the referee though and added,
"Referees are like God, they are not always right but they are never wrong. We can't question them or appeal against them.
"When you work as hard as I do and my players do, you play for 42 matches and get an incompetent performance like that, there is not a lot you can do. We have got amateur people running a professional sport. If you are to be an umpire in the County Championship you have to have played at that level.
"It happens at every game across the country, we end up talking about the officials, not the match."
Sturridge on song
Nick Callow at Turf Moor (Observer)
Get ready for a revival of the rock steady beat of the Black Country, because Wolverhampton are three points clear in second place in the First Division and are four games away from returning to the top flight after 18 years.
Burnley stay in a play-off spot, but results elsewhere went against them and their comeback attempt from three goals down here was not enough to stave off fears that they might yet be caught and miss the end-of-season promotion lottery.
When Burnley found the back of the net after only eight minutes, things really turned nasty. Mainly because the referee, Orpington's Barry Knight, ruled that Gareth Taylor had fouled keeper Michael Oakes when he headed in Paul Gascoigne's free-kick. They were still protesting on and off the pitch when Wolves went down the other end and scored.
Mind you, Burnley thought Colin Cameron was offside when he took Alex Rae's pass inside the penalty area. There was no flag, though, and Cameron had a cross blocked and then mis-hit a shot that went straight to Sturridge, who stuck out a foot to deflect the ball in. A remarkable header off the line by Dean West prevented Sturridge from adding a second two minutes later, and the joy of the Wolverhampton fans was matched only by the anger emanating from the other three sides of the sold-out ground.
Burnley kept battling, but Wolves were now playing at a tempo their hosts were struggling to cope with. Their second goal came in the 26th minute. Shaun Newton took advantage of some indecisive defending to feed Sturridge at the near post and he hooked the ball in with a well-struck right-foot volley.
Gascoigne sprang into life shortly before half-time to signal that he and Burnley might not be out of it yet. He ran at, and beat, three Wolves defenders before bursting into the box to shoot narrowly wide. It proved to be a hollow cry, though, and reports of Gazza and Burnley's demise were ultimately being reported with conviction when Cameron scored a third Wolves goal on the stroke of half-time. Substitute Gunnar Halle played him in and the Scotland international finished with style, shooting into the roof of Nikolaos Michopoulos's net.
The match took a twist when Gascoigne was replaced by Glen Little for the start of the second half and fellow half-time substitute Ian Moore, on for Taylor, headed in a Lee Briscoe free-kick seventy-four seconds after the restart. Oakes saved from Kevin Ball moments later and Burnley briefly played with hope, until the 58th minute, that is, when Alan Moore fouled Halle and then tried to flick a kick at his face - red card for Moore and three points to Wolves.
Burnley remained the better team and pulled back another goal when David Johnson stabbed in a shot with five minutes of normal time remaining. An incredibly tense finish followed to ensure that Turf Moor rocked from start to finish, but ultimately the best team won.
Wolves bypass Gazza
Stephen Bierley at Turf Moor (Guardian)
When a manager begins to talk along the lines of "this club is making very good progress", as Burnley's Stan Ternent did on Saturday, it is impossible not to feel that he is preparing the ground for bad news. The Lancashire club, top of the table before Christmas, may yet fall short of the play-offs and anyway - judging by their first-half performance - are utterly unequipped for life in the Premiership.
The arrival of Paul Gascoigne has done wonders for the gates but nothing for the team. "We were totally off the pace in the first half," said Ternent, naming no names. Suffice it to say that Gazza stayed in the dressing room at half-time and Burnley improved sharply thereafter.
After making his debut for the Lancashire club against Bradford City Gascoigne admitted to being surprised by the pace of the First Division and once again the action swirled past him while he pressed forward like an old man trying to keep his balance in a gale.
His footballing brain is sharp still, as evidenced by his early free-kick which Gareth Taylor, rising as one with Michael Oakes, headed in. But not for the first time during an afternoon of much petty feuding the referee Barry Knight appeared incapable of distinguishing fair from foul. "It was a perfectly good goal," said Ternent, who described the referee as "incompetent".
There were good grounds for also supposing the first Wolves goal was offside but there was no arguing with their superiority in the first half, Dean Sturridge taking his two goals (and it is now 20 in 24 matches) with deadly economy and Colin Cameron adding a spectacular third.
After four matches without a win, including a 1-0 home defeat by Grimsby Town, Dave Jones was clearly much cheered by this result, particularly with West Bromwich Albion making a late and concerted run for an automatic promotion spot. Not that he admits to letting Albion enter his thoughts for a milli-second.
"We are not looking over our shoulders,only above us," said Jones, who hopes to defeat Manchester City at Molineux this lunchtime and go on to be promoted as champions, his heart's desire.
Wolves are a compelling force when in full and fluent flow, achieving a level of athleticism which few teams in this division can match. But, if they are contained, Jones's players are inclined to fret and lose their momentum.
When this happens Wolves can look extremely ordinary, becoming over reliant on long balls flung into open spaces in the hope that something will happen. Ian Moore's neatly headed goal at the start of the second half was never likely to ignite a full-blown Burnley resurgence but it did slacken the Wolves sails considerably.
Jones commended the "battling" nature of his side's second- half performance but he will surely have been concerned by the way in which the initiative was seized by Burnley quite so easily. Had they scored a second goal 10 minutes sooner - David Johnson having made it 3-2 in the 85th minute - all of Wolves' first-half effort might have been undone. "We sat back and allowed them to come at us," said Jones. They will not get away with that this afternoon.