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The first chance of the game fell to the home side but goalkeeper Michael Hale made a good save to deny Marc Goodfellow but then we had our best spell of the match and had chances to go in front, all of which were spurned.
Rhys Carpenter and Matt O’Neill both had chances but were unable to take them and inevitably we paid the price when Stoke took the lead on 39 minutes when Laurence Hall headed in a Lewis Neal cross via the upright.
It could so easily have been two almost from the kick off at the beginning of the second half when Goodfellow latched onto a poor back pass from Joel Pilkington but he opted to shoot rather than cross and the chance went begging.
But just before the hour Goodfellow did double Stoke’s lead when he raced on to a through ball to slot the ball past the Burnley keeper.
Within a minute we did almost pull a goal back when David May had a header cleared off the line but as Burnley pulled off both May and Weller it was just a matter of whether we could keep Stoke to just two goals.
We did but the opportunity to lift ourselves off the bottom of the league had gone and with the next reserve team game not until the New Year we will have to wait a while longer before we get another opportunity.
The teams were,
Stoke: Neil Cutler, Brian Wilson, Carl Dickinson, Richard Keogh, Gareth Owen, Karl Henry, Ryan Hutchinson, Jay Denny, Laurence Hall, Lewis Neal, Marc Goodfellow (Jermaine Palmer 87). Subs not used: Chris Sanna, Cartwright, Adam Baptist, Wayne Teague.
Burnley: Michael Hale, Dean West, Earl Davis, David May (Ryan Townsend 67), Danny Pitham, Marc Pugh, Paul Weller (Darrell Avery 75), Joel Pilkington, Tom Ince, Rhys Carpenter (Alex Taylor 83), Matt O’Neill. Subs not used: Gary Carter, Joe Booth.
Burnley’s Fixtures and Results