We don't do home Saturdays now. We get the floodlights on and play midweek and that used to bring with it better home results and exciting nights. It's not the case now and any hopes of a decent return from these four games have been well and truly flattened.
The fact is we've got two of the twelve points on offer. We've scored just one goal in four home games and we have to go back over five years to the last time that happened at home and Hull were involved then.
The Hull game on that occasion was the 1-0 defeat that saw the end of Steve Cotterill as manager. The next three, the first three home games under Owen Coyle, saw David Unsworth as the only goalscorer as we recorded, as now, two draws and a further defeat.
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| Ben Mee was back after recovering from injury |
It's not just the results this time though, although I'm sure the levels of criticism would not have been anything like as high had they been better, but the poor quality of football on show. I've described previous weeks as mind numbing and flat and nothing that happened in this game would suggest anything's changed.
Around a decade or so ago, when I was learning to pen match reports, I was given some good advice by a fellow Claret who said just find five or six incidents in the game and wrap your report round those.
It's been good advice, but not for this match because, quite frankly, I don't think any amount of searching would find enough incidents. It was awful stuff. I think Hull goalkeeper David Stockdale had one save to make, to deny Ross Wallace and I'm not sure that Lee Grant even had that other than the solitary goal that he had no chance of keeping out.
The stats show Hull having beaten us 5-3 for on target shots on goal but we won the overall shots on goal at 9-8. I must have dozed off for a time because I certainly can't remember that much incident.
Hull had lost their last three away games. They'd conceded four goals in each of their last two and Steve Bruce opted for a more solid (for want of a better word) formation with the main target being to keep a clean sheet.
Sean Dyche is switching from no changes to wholesale changes now. When Huddersfield beat us two weeks ago we'd made five outfield changes and that's what happened again.
Some of them were of no surprise but others most certainly were. He recalled fit again defenders Michael Duff and Ben Mee. They replaced Kevin Long and Danny Lafferty and the two Irish defenders can consider themselves very unlucky to have lost their places.
Chris McCann, hardly surprisingly, replaced Marvin Bartley and there were places too for Keith Treacy and fit again Ross Wallace at the expense of Junior Stanislas and Martin Paterson.
With the temperatures dropping I arrived well prepared with more layers of clothing on than I could count, but one of the more positive events of the night was the fact that it didn't get anything like as cold as forecast so at least I was reasonably warm as I sat out watching the March snow fall for around an hour and a half.
We started the game on the front foot to the extent that most of the play was towards the Hull goal. They seemed almost content to let us have possession with confidence that they could defend anything we might offer.
They weren't far off although with that assumption although we might have done better with a couple of opportunities. Chris McCann headed over from close range and soon after, after a scramble, the ball dropped for Alex Kačaniklić but his shot went wide.
The only time we really tested Stockdale was from a long range effort hit by Wallace. It looked spectacular but a second look shows it was a fairly routine save.
Until around a quarter of an hour before half time, Grant must have been suffering from frostbite, but Hull started to come into things and they too had a couple of opportunities that threatened more than they offered.
That was about it before the half time whistle. It had been far from good and there were some stunned looking faces in the crowd as the players trooped off for their break.
It would be nice to report that things improved in the second half, but I've always tried to keep my reports as accurate as possible and to suggest anything like that would be misleading at best.
After a sorry opening to the half we made a change with Sam Vokes replacing Treacy. I remain baffled by this one. I'm not attempting to say that Treacy was having a particularly good game but he was the only player who had threatened to cross a ball all night.
I'd have taken off Kačaniklić. He'd done nothing whatsoever of note and didn't for the remainder of the game. Good player he may be, but his showing in two home games so far has left most Burnley fans scratching their heads looking for any positive contribution.
Bartley replaced Edgar and then, on 64 minutes, Hull made their move. As Alex Bruce and the disappointing Mohamed Gedo came off, to be replaced by Robert Koren and Jay Simpson, I suggested they were finally going to try and open up the game.
Koren is Hull's leading goalscorer, but Bruce had left him out to play yet another central defender. His decision to make the switch paid quick and handsome dividends. Immediately the two of them were involved in the next move.
Koren played the ball inside for Simpson who returned the ball to Koren out wide on the ride. The Slovenian crossed, Simpson played it into the path of Stephen Quinn and he drilled a shot low into the bottom corner. Hull were in front forty seconds after the substitutions.
I think most home supporters knew that was it. There was still almost half an hour to go but you sensed this was yet another night when we'd still be at nil if we played to midnight and so it proved.
We had opportunities. Vokes saw a shot get the slightest of deflections to take it over the bar and in the last minute of stoppage time he got over a cross only for Charlie Austin to head wide.
The final whistle was met with boos, as expected, which was then followed by the silent exit of the fans. You will more or less always hear supporters leaving the ground discussing what they've seen but when it is as awful as this; when the quality of football is so dire, everyone seems to leave in almost stunned silence.
I've seen a lot of bad football matches at Turf Moor over the years, far too many, but I'm not sure when I last saw a sequence of four games as bad as this. Middlesbrough and Hull came to do a job and did it with some ease. The only difference is that Middlesbrough didn't get a goal when they stepped it up.
Huddersfield must not have been able to believe their luck when, as just about the worst team we've faced this season at home, they went home with all three points. And then there was Barnsley who played better football at times than the rest of them put together.
But this is about Burnley. This is about four games so lacking in any sort of entertainment it's frightening. It's hard to believe. Who would have thought after the home games against Crystal Palace and, to a lesser extent, Birmingham that we would get this dross served up four weeks on the trot?
Steve Bruce suggested after the game that television viewers would have been rushing to change channels so bad was the game, but it's the numbers in the ground that count and fans are beginning to vote with their feet.
What effect will that have on the embarrassingly named and equally confusing season ticket campaign? I'm told we've even got Comet style people in the club shop now pestering supporters.
A visit to Turf Moor should be one to savour. It's not on many levels. Oh for a game now like the ones against Bolton, Blackpool, Watford or Crystal Palace. They seem light years away.
We are playing better away from home, thankfully, so the fear of going to Ewood is not as great as it might be. Even so it's a worry. I wasn't looking forward to it to start with but I'm certainly looking forward to it less now.
Last night's teams were;
Burnley: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, David Edgar (Marvin Bartley 63), Chris McCann, Keith Treacy (Sam Vokes 54), Ross Wallace (Danny Ings 84), Alex Kačaniklić, Charlie Austin. Subs not used: Brian Jensen, Kevin Long, Danny Lafferty, Martin Paterson.
Hull: David Stockdale, James Chester, Jack Hobbs, Paul McShane, Ahmed Elmohamady, David Meyler, Alex Bruce (Robert Koren 64), Stephen Quinn (Liam Rosenior 86), Robbie Brady, George Boyd, Mohamed Gedo (Jay Simpson 64). Subs not used: Eldin Jakupovic, Abdoulaye Faye, Ahmed Fathi, Nick Proschwitz.
Yellow Card: Alex Bruce.
Referee: Eddie Ilderton (Tyne & Wear).
Attendance: 10,450.