An early cup exit, hardly any midweek games in the Premier League, international breaks and successive away games have left us having only played once at home since the draw against Manchester United seven weeks ago.
But finally we are back home after trips to West Brom and Leicester and we are still searching for that first win of the season although, thankfully, the run without a goal monkey was finally removed from our backs at the King Power Stadium.
Michael Kightly's goal came just a few minutes too late to prevent us creating a new club record but when it was put to him after the game the ever positive Sean Dyche just remarked that we'd created a lot of records in our promotion season and this was just another.
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| Lukas Jutkiewicz is looking for the three points |
There might be another one coming up soon too. Should we avoid defeat in one more away game this season it will mean a record low of away defeats in a Premier League season, this having lost 17 of the 19 last time.
But, we are back at home and against a West Ham side who we beat last time round in this Premier League fixture. It was a first win for new manager Brian Laws and the goals in the 2-1 victory came from David Nugent and debutant Danny Fox with Ilan replying for West Ham.
Much has been said about the absence of Sam Vokes and also, more recently, Danny Ings, but summer signing Lukas Jutkiewicz has done well although he's still looking for his first competitive goal since netting Bolton's second goal in their final day of the season 2-2 draw against Birmingham last May.
Even so, his performances have impressed Burnley fans so far and ahead of tomorrow's game he confirmed that the Clarets will again be on the front foot looking to win this game.
Having played his part in the draw at Leicester, he said: "It was obviously nice having gone into the break having got the last gasp equaliser. It's always nice to go in on a more positive note.
"It might have been good to have a game the following week and get a bit of momentum. We took it to Leicester in the second half I think and we were well worthy of at least a point."
He added: ""Any game we're going to try and get as many points as possible. We need as many as we can get of course. It's important whether it is home or away that we try and be brave to do just that.
"People say that Turf Moor would be the place we'll pick up most of our points but you have to go into every game thinking you're going to get three points. It'd be nice to make it a fortress though.
"I've enjoyed my time from day one here as everyone has made me feel very welcome so it's been great. It'll be great to get in front of our fans again and hopefully they'll get behind us and we can turn that into positive results."
Jutkiewicz has been an ever present this season and I don't see that run of appearances ending tomorrow. He started the season alongside Danny Ings but since Danny was forced off at Palace he's partnered both Marvin Sordell and Ashley Barnes whilst playing as a lone striker at West Brom.
Ings is fit to return tomorrow but finally we've got some news on all our injured players. Joining Ings on the fit again list are both David Jones and Nathaniel Chalobah with Kieran Trippier's return just awaiting any potential reaction after he enjoyed two days full training with the rest of the squad.
Michael Keane returned from England under-21 international with a tight hamstring. He's being assessed and could be available for tomorrow.
Dean Marney remains touch and go with Dyche suggesting this one might just come too early for him. He'll certainly be back for the Everton game if he's not in tomorrow's squad.
Out though are both Steven Reid and Matt Taylor. Reid has a groin problem that forced him off at half time at West Brom and Taylor, who hasn't played since the Man United match in August, is now facing minor surgery on an Achilles problem.
Taylor will be disappointed to miss out against his old club.
I'm not certain what the team will be but we could line up something like: Tom Heaton, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Michael Kightly, Scott Arfield, David Jones, George Boyd, Danny Ings, Lukas Jutkiewicz. Subs from: Matt Gilks, Michael Keane, Kevin Long, Stephen Ward, Nathaniel Chalobah, Ross Wallace, Ashley Barnes, Marvin Sordell.
West Ham started 2014 in a relegation place in the Premier League and a disappointing run of results in the New Year left fans calling for Sam Allardyce to be sacked. But a run of four wins in February eased the pressure on him and although they lost eight of the last eleven games they ended the season comfortably clear of the bottom three.
Much was said about the owners, Chas and Dave, demanding a different style of football but Allardyce has rubbished that although he did bring in Teddy Sheringham, a big mate of our management team, as an attacking coach.
He also spent a bit of brass over the summer on his squad and so far it looks to be paying dividends. They are currently up in 7th place in the table with ten points from three wins and a draw. They won at Crystal Palace in their first away game of the season and have since won home games against Liverpool and QPR.
The draw came in a televised game at Hull on Monday 15th September. It was one of those games where I deliberated whether I wanted to watch it or not, but I'm pleased I did because it turned out to be a really enjoyable game between two sides very much on form.
Twice Hull led and twice West Ham came back to earn a point from a 2-2 draw. The second of goals was a Curtis Davies own goal but the first of them was a brilliant strike from Ecuador international Enner Valencia.
He was the most expensive of their summer signings at around £12 million from Pachuca in Mexico.
It's more difficult to determine what team Allardyce will select. He's more likely to use squad rotation than we are but he, like us, has received good news this week with players returning from injury.
Mark Noble is back in contention whilst all of James Collins, Guy Demel and Joey O'Brien are now back in training.
They are still likely to be without Cheikhou Kouyate who suffered a groin injury in the win against Liverpool and, of course, they will be without their own sick note player Andy Carroll who is back in light training.
They beat QPR last time out at the Boleyn Ground and the team that day was: Adrian, Carl Jenkinson, James Tomkins, Winston Reid, Aaron Cresswell, Alex Song, Morgan Amalfitano, Stewart Downing, Mauro Zarate, Diafra Sakho, Enner Valencia. Subs: Jussi Jaaskelainen, Diego Poyet, Carlton Cole, Reece Burke, Elliot Lee, Kevin Nolan, Matthew Jarvis.
Last Time They Were Here
West Ham knocked us out of the Capital One Cup last season; Matt Taylor and Jack Collison both scoring penalties in their 2-0 win, but their last league visit to Turf Moor came in March 2012.
We were on a poor run. We'd collected just two points from the previous six league games and had slumped to 16th place in the table. West Ham, meanwhile, had gone nine games unbeaten but had lost their place in the top two due to their four previous games all having been drawn 1-1. They hadn't been difficult games either with three of them at home.
We'd lost 1-0 at Ipswich in midweek and Eddie Howe made four changes. Two were forced on him with injuries to Danny Lafferty and Jay Rodriguez but he also dropped both Junior Stanislas and Charlie Austin. In came Ben Mee, Ross Wallace, Danny Ings and Martin Paterson.
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| Marvin Bartley opened the scoring |
Stanislas and Austin were on the bench alongside Brian Jensen, Josh McQuoid and, for the first time in a league fixture, Steven Hewitt.
Burnley fans had just about given up on the season and there was little confidence ahead of kick off. but we'd already beaten them at the Boleyn Ground earlier in the season, coming from behind to win 2-1 with headed goals from Chris McCann and Sam Vokes.
West Ham started the better and Carlton Cole had two chances to give his side the lead. But we got ourselves into the game and started to play with a tempo not seen at Turf Moor for some time.
We were becoming a threat and that led to us taking the lead. Wallace played the ball in from the right, Paterson flicked it on and Marvin Bartley took the ball past James Tomkins before forcing the ball home into the bottom corner.
There was an amazing incident a minute later. Kevin Nolan scored what he thought was an equaliser and he and his team mates went on a long celebration unaware that Mark Haywood had ruled it out for offside. We even tried to restart the game with four West Ham players off the pitch celebrating.
Cole hit the post and we were under the cosh, but we broke to double the lead. Mee went down the left, crossed right footed and Paterson got in front of the defenders and his touch took the ball past Green.
Wallace hit the post in the last minute of the first half but Paterson was hauled down as he went for the ball and we should have been ending the half with a penalty. Even so, we went in two goals to the good and looked set to end that run without a win.
West Ham brought on Sam Baldock and Nicky Maynard at the start of the second half and it was a half we were never really able to get into it.
Even so, we were preventing West Ham from creating anything. That was until the 68th minute when Michael Duff misjudged a ball and allowed Nolan to lob the ball over the stranded Lee Grant.
Two minutes later and they were level. Bartley lost James Tomkins at a free kick and he had the simple task of converting.
Twenty minutes to go and all about whether West Ham would go on to win it. We were hanging on and hanging on. We had a habit of conceding late goals too but this time held on and at least got a draw.
The teams were;
Burnley: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, David Edgar, Ben Mee, Dean Marney, Marvin Bartley (Charlie Austin 81), Chris McCann, Ross Wallace, Martin Paterson (Junior Stanislas 90+1), Danny Ings (Josh McQuoid 86). Subs not used: Brian Jensen, Steven Hewitt.
West Ham: Robert Green, Joey O'Brien, James Tomkins, Danny Collins, George McCartney, Mark Noble, Gary O'Neil, Kevin Nolan, Jack Collison (John Carew 82), Matt Taylor (Nicky Maynard 45), Carlton Cole (Sam Baldock 45). Subs not used: Dan Potts, Henri Lansbury.
Previous Games against West Ham
| Last 20 Years | |||||
| Season | Comp | Ven | Res | Att | Scorers |
| 2003/04 | Championship | a | 2-2 | 31,474 | Facey, I Moore |
| h | 1-1 | 12,440 | Branch | ||
| 2004/05 | Championship | a | 0-1 | 22,119 | |
| h | 0-1 | 12,209 | |||
| 2009/10 | Premier League | a | 3-5 | 34,003 | Fletcher(2), Eagles |
| h | 2-1 | 21,001 | Nugent, Fox | ||
| 2011/12 | Championship | a | 2-1 | 26,274 | McCann, Vokes |
| h | 2-2 | 15,246 | Bartley, Paterson | ||
| 2013/14 | Cap One Cup | h | 0-2 | 14,376 | |
Click HERE to see all previous results against West Ham