Some reports have suggested the game was one way traffic; the obnoxious Little Billy referred to it as total domination, but he wants to take a better look at what went on rather than turning on his appalling touchline display.
We weren't at our best; we certainly weren't the better of the two teams but we stuck at it, restricted Forest to very few goalscoring opportunities and we earned ourselves a very hard worked for point.
I'm certainly not going to write about a hard luck story; that one came last time out against Bournemouth. We scored against the run of play before seeing the lead wiped out just before half time and there were times in the second half when it was like the Alamo but I find it distasteful that we've been given precious little credit for a real determined performance that ensured we didn't suffer a second defeat of the season.
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| Jason Shackell, part of our excellent defensive performance |
More motorway problems faced us. It seems to be a regular occurrence this season but we took a different route to the City Ground on the Supporters' Club coach and we pulled into the car park at least 45 minutes before kick off.
By then we'd learned that Dean Marney had been ruled out with David Edgar, as he'd done at Doncaster and Millwall, coming into the midfield. The team was otherwise as expected while Nottingham Forest had Jack Hobbs in the centre of defence to partner Jamaal Lascelles when they'd been telling everyone they had no central defenders available.
Having said that, I believe Jack Hobbs was a decent cricketer in his time so perhaps it might have been better if someone had shipped him out to Australia a few days ago to join up with the now beleaguered England team.
On a cold afternoon when the hat and gloves made their first appearance of the season, we were stuck in the corner of the ground following Forest's new policy, under instructions from Davies, not to have away fans directly behind the goal.
We were defending that end of the ground but the opening period of the game saw the Clarets take the game to Forest. During this spell Henri Lansbury received a yellow card from referee Carl Boyeson who was to be given a difficult afternoon by the Forest players who were in his face at almost every opportunity demanding decisions in their favour.
He's been poor in previous Burnley games but stood up to them. He waved away Jamie Mackie's appalling attempts at getting a penalty although just before that he quite rightly gave the Forest forward a free kick when he went down under a challenge from Jason Shackell.
That brought their best effort yet when Lansbury crashed the free kick against the bar with Simon Cox almost getting onto the rebound.
Forest had wrestled that early initiative away from us and were now beginning to get on top, but just before the half hour we rocked them with the opening goal.
Reports seem to have ignored the contribution from Michael Kightly, but it was his wonderful cross field ball from the left back position that found Scott Arfield. He moved forward up the right of the pitch before looking and waiting for Kieran Trippier.
As Trips broke clear he played the perfect ball for him and the full back's cross was blocked by Gonzalo Jara's arm. There seemed to be no indication from the well placed assistant referee but television pictures clearly show he and the referee communicating before Boyeson rightly pointed to the spot.
Sam Vokes, and it is Vokes when the penalty hasn't been won by Danny Ings, stepped up to place the kick right in the bottom corner to Karl Darlow's right and Burnley were, someone fortunately I have to say, 1-0 up.
One was close to two as Edgar got clear in the box. He played the ball across the six yard area but no one was able to convert it. A second then would have made a massive difference but unfortunately the game's second goal was not long in coming and went Forest's way.
We gave the ball away too easily on our left hand side which left Jamie Paterson in the box. He got the better of David Jones and, with Tom Heaton guarding his near post, the wide man chipped the ball over to the back post where Cox got the better of Trippier to head home.
So level at half time. We couldn't have too many complaints overall despite getting so close to a half time lead.
Davies changed things for the second half. He replaced Eric Lichaj with Nathaniel Chalobah and went with three central defenders and an extra man in midfield.
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| Sam Vokes scored the penalty and played well up front for the Clarets |
The plan might have back fired. In this world of Billy's total domination, Burnley three times went close to regaining the lead in the early stages of the second half. Ings got clear twice. On the first occasion he fed Arfield whose shot was blocked at the expense of a corner, and on the second occasion he got the ball under his feet and allowed the defenders to get back.
Ings almost combined with Vokes with the Forest defence again struggling and I was beginning to think the second half might not be as difficult as I imagined it might be.
We replaced Kightly with Keith Treacy with Arfield switching to the left. That had been our difficult side of the pitch and things didn't improve at all as Forest launched an offensive with most of their attacks coming down their right.
They started to put us under some real pressure but real credit to our defence. They worked tirelessly, they remained disciplined and in truth there wasn't too much for Heaton to do despite a period of almost relentless attack.
Even so, Ings almost got another chance and Arfield hammered a shot in from the edge of the box that Darlow saved well.
As we went into the last ten minutes it was clear we would be happy with a point. We went deeper, or maybe Forest pushed us back, and there were, admittedly, one or two frantic moments as the ball bounced around our six yard box.
It was getting tight and I remember looking up at the clock on the big screen in the corner and seeing 84 minutes gone. I said nothing. I didn't want to tempt fate, but this Burnley side rarely concede late goals now. Things have changed in the last year when previously we were conceding late goals on a regular basis.
We still had some defending to do. Mee made one brilliant block as he threw his body in. Hobbs failed to get a decent header in but by the end Forest had run out of ideas and when Boyeson, belatedly because of a late injury to Chris Cohen, blew his final whistle we'd won ourselves the point we needed to stay top as news came in of Charlie Austin and David Nugent winning the games for QPR and Leicester.
Forest are a decent side. They will be there or thereabouts come the end of the season of that I've no doubt. They are a club I used to have a soft spot for but that was in the days of Terry Hennessey, John Barnwell and Joe Baker. I don't imagine anyone has a soft spot for them now with that obnoxious little man on the touchline.
We worked so hard yesterday to a man. We didn't play as well as we can on the ball but special mention for Vokes up front who had another excellent ninety minutes. He could have done no more.
And, of course, the back four. They targeted Mee's side but in truth all four of them were on their game, with Michael Duff at his dominant best, and they needed to be.
A point each then in the end - amazing given there was total domination from one team.
The teams were;
Nottingham Forest: Karl Darlow, Eric Lichaj (Nathaniel Chalobah ht), Jack Hobbs, Jamaal Lascelles, Chris Cohen, Jamie Paterson (Darius Henderson 76), Gonzalo Jara, Radoslaw Majewski, Henri Lansbury (Djamel Abdoun 69), Jamie Mackie, Simon Cox. Subs not used: Dorus De Vries, Dan Harding, Marcus Tudgay, Matt Derbyshire.
Yellow Card: Henri Lansbury.
Burnley: Tom Heaton, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Scott Arfield, David Edgar, David Jones, Michael Kightly (Keith Treacy 63), Danny Ings, Sam Vokes. Subs not used: Alex Cisak, Kevin Long, Danny Lafferty, Brian Stock, Junior Stanislas, Ryan Noble.
Yellow Card: Scott Arfield.
Referee: Carl Boyeson (Hull).
Attendance: 22,877 (including 1,733 Clarets).