A goalless draw at Wigan probably shouldn't have come as a surprise. It's the third time we've played at their new ground at this level and all three of the games have now ended with no score draw and Andy Payton's opener in the then Division Two clash in 1999 remains our only league goal there.
There was no lack of support for the Clarets with not far short of 4,900 situated in the away end. The sheer numbers forced us to make changes to our plans to ensure we could find a decent parking space and we did just that, arriving not much after noon.
The pubs were already packed with Clarets and by the time we took our seats in the ground, some 45 minutes before kick off, it was already filling up.
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| The closest to a goal was when David Jones saw his effort tipped onto the bar |
Sean Dyche had made one change to the team. Earlier in the day there was some speculation of changes on Sky Sports News but that's information you cannot consider reliable. On Boxing Day they revealed that Ross Wallace was ruled out with injury with Junior Stanislas the likely replacement.
Given the number of players at our disposal there was never going to be the sort of squad rotation that occurs elsewhere and the one change saw Keith Treacy come in for Michael Kightly. Danny Lafferty again deputised for the injured Ben Mee and the one other change saw well again Alex Cisak back on the bench as sub goalkeeper.
Some 0-0 draws are exciting; others are such that the scoreline is appropriate and this one fell into the latter category. There wasn't much incident to report to be honest and in the first half we had to wait until the very end before there was a real threat on goal, and that came for us.
When the game kicked off I'm sure Wigan's James McArthur must have wondered what he'd done to upset the Burnley fans who booed him vociferously with every touch of the ball. The Wigan number 16 had been confused with their number 7 by the visiting supporters who quickly realised their mistake and the abuse was transferred to that number 7, namely Chris McCann.
I've read in reports that McCann was the first to get an effort on target when Kieran Trippier cleared a header, even a bullet header according to one report. McCann did head it; Trippier did clear it but the header was not on target and would have gone wide of Tom Heaton's right hand post.
A free kick was Wigan's next best effort of the first half when Jordi Gomez hit the stanchion. That it came from a free kick was probably no surprise as perennial homer Mike Jones awarded the home side soft free kick after soft free kick to the extent that any award to the Clarets was met by sarcastic applause.
That effort from Gomez came after Michael Duff was penalised for a foul on McArthur, by then no longer being booed, for which he was yellow carded. It looked a very soft yellow card to me but it was close to costing him when he got away with one on McCann close to half time. Maybe Jones had realised the error of his ways by then.
But then came the close call right on half time. Treacy superbly released Trippier down the right hand side. Tripps got into the box before pulling the ball back for former Wiganer David Jones. He's not scored a league goal yet for the Clarets but the slightest of touches from home goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi was just enough to tip it into the underside of the bar. It came back down and was cleared after it rebounded off the goalkeeper.
If the first half had been somewhat devoid of goal mouth action then the second half saw even less. There is no doubt that Wigan dominated possession for much of the half but without ever really troubling us while we just didn't seem to get going at all.
With Scott Arfield and Dean Marney both having disappointing games and us getting nothing much from the two strikers, it was, for much of the half, a matter of how well we would defend with nothing likely to come from us.
The answer is we defended well. We defended far too well for Wigan who hardly threatened us throughout the half with Heaton left almost as redundant as Al Habsi.
Long before the end you sensed it was going to be a 0-0 finish. Kightly replaced Treacy with thirteen minutes or so remaining and went on one good run but couldn't apply the finish.
Duff, who might have seen red in the first half, did finally have to give in to an injury. It saw Kevin Long come on to play out the last seven minutes plus stoppage time. It's difficult coming on as a defender like that but he won two good headers and did all that was expected of him.
By the end we had to be pleased with the point. We just hadn't done anything like enough to win the game and it meant we'd failed to score in successive games for the first time this season.
The lack of options is now, I suspect, beginning to cost us as we knew it would. Thankfully it is expected that the squad will be strengthened during the January transfer window.
The teams were;
Wigan: Ali Al Habsi, Emmerson Boyce, Ivan Ramis, Leon Barnet, Stephen Crainey, James McArthur, James Perch, Chris McCann (Rob Kiernan 83), Nick Powell, Marc-Antoine Fortuné (James McClean 54), Jordi Gomez (Roger Espinoza 77). Subs not used: Lee Nicholls, Callum McManaman, Grant Holt, Nouha Dicko.
Yellow Card: Nick Powell.
Burnley: Tom Heaton, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff (Kevin Long 83), Jason Shackell, Danny Lafferty, Keith Treacy (Michael Kightly 77), Dean Marney, David Jones, Scott Arfield, Danny Ings, Sam Vokes. Subs not used: Alex Cisak, David Edgar, Brian Stock, Steven Hewitt, Junior Stanislas.
Yellow Card: Michael Duff.
Referee: Mike Jones (Cheshire).
Attendance: 17,712 (including 4,857 Clarets).