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Strangely, discussions before kick off suggested the first twenty minutes might be tough, the home crowd would be up for it, their players would be up for it and they would probably throw everything at us to get off to a good start. We felt that if we could reach the twenty minute mark with the scores still level then we'd have a damn good chance of going on to win the game.
How wrong could we be? We showed two changes from the side that had started against West Brom. Clarke Carlisle made his debut and David Unsworth, captain for the day, his league debut to replace the departed Wayne Thomas and the injured Steven Caldwell in the centre of defence. Both of the new defenders came close to making an early impact.
Rather than be up against it for the first twenty minutes, we totally dominated the game. Scunthorpe didn't have one attack of note as the Clarets went forward time and again. We won a series of corners as Scunthorpe defended desperately but when the chances fell we just couldn't turn them into a goal.
Carlisle and Unsworth both had headers at goal that went over, there were shots wide and at one point the away end went up to celebrate a Joey Gudjonsson opener that had actually missed the target. Unsworth's was probably the easiest of the chances, but it did look only a matter of time before we scored. Scunthorpe were all at sea, we were totally dominating play, and our fears of an early assault from the home side had proved totally unfounded.
I looked at my watch, just over twenty minutes gone and it was one way traffic, but then the game changed, and at no time during the next seventy minutes were we ever in control of anything.
By half time we could count ourselves very fortunate to be level. Scunthorpe had got to grips with things. They'd closed Andy Gray down, they'd put two men on Wade Elliott and our options seem to disappear. We were ragged in midfield, decidedly worrying down our left hand side, and we were by now second best.
Just to add to the drama, Gabor Kiraly had a nightmare ten minutes as he failed to deal with balls into the box. He had angry confrontations with both Carlisle and Unsworth, but well done Michael Duff who stepped in to support and encourage his goalkeeper.
Three times in a matter of a few minutes we had to head clear off the line. Twice it was Unsworth, one of them a superb effort, as Kiraly either missed out or mis-punched, but the keeper did make one superb save, getting down to his right to palm a shot away at the expense of a corner. We needed half time, and thankfully we got there with the scores level. It was time to regroup and get ourselves back into the game.
From the start of the second half we needed to get ourselves back in control but instead things went a whole lot worse as we conceded within two minutes of the restart, and what a bad goal to give away. We conceded an unnecessary free kick, and we seemed half asleep as they got the ball into our box far too easily, laid it off and Paterson hit a shot into the far corner.
It was just what we didn't want, but we came back at them and more than once had opportunities, but players seemed all too keen to give others a shot at goal and so often we failed to get shots in when we should have done. Kyle Lafferty came on for the hugely disappointing Jon Harley but there was no change and eventually they wrapped it up with a second.
Again it came down our left, again they got forward too easily. Credit Jim Goodwin, probably the best player on the field, but he got into a good position without anyone doing much about it, he skipped past Carlisle and with Kiraly having come out he got his shot past him and clinched the points for the home side.
Ade Akinbiyi came on, John Spicer came on, but it was all frantic, and although there were one or two scrambles and we dominated the play I don't think the home defence would have ever considered themselves unduly worried.
Scunthorpe had been accused of time wasting by Charlton boss Alan Pardew last week. He wasn't wrong, they were just downright blatant and referee Tony Bates, who otherwise had an excellent game, didn't seem to do anything about that or when they wasted more time by kicking the ball away. Some referees will clamp down on them, Kettle didn't last week either, something Pardew was asking for last week.
We're not taking anything away from Scunthorpe they beat us fair and square, they deserved the points, and we got what we deserved. Overall it was very disappointing, we need to improve dramatically on that, and somehow from somewhere we have to find some creativity, or there are going to be more games like this.
The teams were;
Scunthorpe: Joe Murphy, Cliff Byrne, Andy Crosby, Izzy Iriekpen (Andy Butler 24), Marcus Williams, Jonathan Forte (Matt Sparrow 67), Jim Goodwin, Ian Baraclough, Kevan Hurst, Paul Hayes, Martin Paterson (Cleveland Taylor 87). Subs not used: Josh Lillis, Kelly Youga.
Burnley: Gabor Kiraly, Michael Duff, Clarke Carlisle, David Unsworth, Stephen Jordan, Wade Elliott (Ade Akinbiyi 66), Joey Gudjonsson, Chris McCann (John Spicer 79), Jon Harley (Kyle Lafferty 57), Robbie Blake, Andy Gray. Subs not used: Brian Jensen, James O'Connor.
Referee: Tony Bates (Stoke).
Attendance: 6,975 (1,334 from Burnley).