It's a difficult one to take because Leicester had very little to offer. They didn't look like a side who are playing well at home and I thought this was the first time on the road this season that we should have been coming home with something.
It wasn't to be, simply because of one calamitous goal and one fluke in the first twelve minutes of the second half that took the game away from us after Dean Marney had struck to give us an early lead in the game.
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| Dean Marney broke the net in giving us the lead |
This wasn't a night when we did much attacking but manager Eddie Howe said ahead of the game that we would have to start being hard to beat and difficult to play against and that's how we set ourselves up.
I was just making my way to the turnstiles when someone shouted: "No Austin," just as I received a text that read 'Austin Injured." We've got a shortage of fit strikers right now and with Martin Paterson not ready to play a full game I was surprised when I saw the full team sheet to see Steven Hewitt named as a substitute when I'd have thought Shay McCartan, as he was at Middlesbrough, was the more likely.
In an obvious change of formation it was Brian Stock who came in for Austin who has been reported to have both a dead leg and a hip injury. It is a hip injury and is not expected to keep him out on Saturday.
For Stock it was a first league start for the Clarets, indeed a first league start since his last game for Doncaster which was our 2-1 win at the Keepmoat on Easter Monday when he played for just 22 minutes.
There was another forced change too. Michael Duff suffered an Achilles injury in Saturday's win against Peterborough which brought about an early return for David Edgar and a third change saw Cameron Stewart preferred to Ross Wallace.
On the bench, with both Austin and Duff ruled out, Luke O'Neill joined Hewitt in the squad of eighteen.
One game apart, this is a good ground for us. Overall, over the years, we've a good record at Leicester with more wins than defeats against them in post war football, and we got off to a good start here.
Leicester were the first to show in what proved to be the pattern for much of the game. We were happy to retreat and let them have possession of the ball. Much talked about Ben Marshall hit a shot wide and the hugely impressive Anthony Knockaert, a summer signing from France, forced Lee Grant into a good save.
Nothing had been seen of the Clarets in the first ten minutes, that was until, in our first attack of the night, we took the lead, and a good goal it was too. Kieran Trippier played a good ball forward but it owed much to Pato who run off his man to get clear down the right.
He looked up, saw Marney storming forward and laid the ball right into his path. Marney hit a powerful shot high into the net from the edge of the box.
It was down at the far end and we couldn't see why there was such a delay in restarting the game. It transpired that Marney's shot had broken the net and some quick repairs had to be made. I'm not sure I can ever recall seeing that happen previously but Ray Pointer did exactly the same across the road at Filbert Street in a 6-2 win in 1961.
For Marney it ended a long wait for a league goal, although he did score at Port Vale in the Capital One Cup, a goal that won the Clarets Mad Goal of the Month for August. He scored two of the first three league goals under Eddie Howe, against Portsmouth and Norwich; this the 98th Howe league goal is Marney's first since then.
For much of the remainder of the first half it was a case of us dealing with Leicester coming forward, but twice we forced Kasper Schmeichel into good saves and had one of those gone in I'm sure I'd have been reporting on a different outcome.
Joseph Mills and then Marney, the pick for me in the first half alongside Stock and Grant, were the players denied and the save from Marney was the best of them.
In truth, we didn't look like conceding. Leicester weren't creating anything in terms of real chances and found Grant ever alert as they tried to hit us with long range efforts, unable to get beyond us.
Stock was doing really well in front of the back four and Jason Shackell, after some difficult games, was master of the defence. We seemed to be cruising through to half time with a one goal lead.
Eventually we did, but it might just have been different had former Claret David Nugent hit a 25-yarder just a little bit lower, but thankfully he saw his effort from the left crash against the top of the bar.
Leicester were booed off at half time. Things are not well at the King Power and there is a growing distrust of manager Nigel Pearson in the stands and those fans were not happy to see their side behind after dominating much of the play. In truth, they deserved nothing better.
The half time talk in the away end was one of the importance of keeping the lead for the first ten to fifteen minutes of the second half. If we could get to the hour mark and beyond in front then the frustration would grow for the home side and a win would be very much on the cards.
The last thing we needed was to concede an early goal but that's exactly what we did with only around a minute and a half of the second half gone, and what a shocker of a goal it was.
"From the long throw we've let the ball bounce," said Howe after the game. That was the damage done but even then Leicester needed some good fortune as Nugent got goal number six against us by shinning it in.
It looked as though it was going to be a different game now and Leicester looked a different side. Twice Grant kept us level with good saves but another goal looked inevitable, but when it came it looked to be very unfortunate.
Jamie Vardy, who had looked a long way short at Championship level, scored his first goal at the King Power when his shot took a big deflection off Shackell and dropped in off the underside of the bar.
Behind, we needed a reaction, but we simply didn't get one. Almost immediately Paterson and Stock went off with Sam Vokes and Ben Mee coming on in a reshuffle that saw us go with three at the back and tuck Junior Stanislas and Stewart inside on the opposite sides to where they'd played, but for around twenty minutes after falling behind we didn't muster one attack worthy of the name.
This was our worst period of the game. We didn't offer anything and a third Leicester goal wouldn't have come as a surprise.
The third substitution, Wallace for Mills, helped. Suddenly we started to get forward and you hoped a chance might come. One cross found just one Burnley player in the box and then Wallace set one up with a ball across on the ground that no one got on the end of - where's Charlie when you need him?
A real chance did come with a few minutes remaining. Vokes scuffed his effort, although it did flick the outside of the post.
Then, in the last minute of normal time, Vokes had the chance of the night after being played in by Marney. It was striker v goalkeeper but Vokes looked the clear favourite. Unfortunately, he didn't put enough behind the shot and placed it too close to Schmeichel who saved. The ball rebounded to Shackell, who by then had gone up front, but it bounced off him, straight back to Schmeichel, and the chance was gone.
It was another away defeat, a third in succession and that needs to be rectified very quickly, and hopefully at Derby on Saturday.
I think we deserved to lose at Middlesbrough after a poor second half. Without any doubt we deserved to lose at Huddersfield, but last night we really should have got something from the game against a Leicester side that will not come close to threatening at the top on that form.
We went with a negative game plan, and I've no problem with that, but once behind it took us too long to realise we'd a game to try and rescue. Until the last ten minutes we offered precious little and it shouldn't have been that easy for Leicester.
The teams were;
Leicester: Kasper Schmeichel, Ritchie de Laet, Wes Morgan, Sean St Ledger, Paul Konchesky, Anthony Knockaert, Danny Drinkwater, Matty James, Ben Marshall (Martyn Waghorn 74), Jamie Vardy (Lloyd Dyer 74), David Nugent (Marko Futacs 88). Subs not used: Conrad Logan, Zak Whitbread, Neil Danns.
Yellow Cards: David Nugent, Anthony Knockaert, Ritchie de Laet.
Burnley: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, David Edgar, Jason Shackell, Joseph Mills (Ross Wallace 74), Brian Stock (Ben Mee 60), Dean Marney, Chris McCann, Junior Stanislas, Martin Paterson (Sam Vokes 60), Cameron Stewart. Subs not used: Brian Jensen, Luke O'Neill, Marvin Bartley, Steven Hewitt.
Yellow Card: Martin Paterson.
Referee: Dean Whitestone (Northamptonshire).
Attendance: 18,480