This is a blog of an exiled Burnley FC fan, sure to be packed with grief, excitement, and the season petering out in March (or April if we're lucky) as usual.
One of the things I miss most about living in Burnley is having the chance to watch the reserves and youth teams and see the young players developing and progressing through the ranks. Four years ago I was watching Kyle Lafferty making his first appearances for the reserve team. Kyle was a big gangly boy, with more than a touch of the Peter Crouch about him. He still reminds me of Crouch sometimes.
I distinctly remember him playing up front and being scared to head the ball. It was infuriating watching him towering over the other players but being unable to use his height advantage.
Since then, Lafferty has progressed beyond all expectations. This week he scored his first double for Northern Ireland, albeit against the international superpower of Georgia.
Lafferty can go to the very top. He has strength, height, a bit of pace, can run with the ball and is developing his passing and crossing all the time. He also has an eye for goal but could do with developing his composure in front of goal. That will come with experience though. He is also showing for his country that he is capable of playing up front for his club.
I hope Owen Coyle hands him a run in the side as a striker in the last few games of the season.
Also this week, Coyle has spoken about Alex McDonald, a small, pacy striker currently making his way in the reserve side with a record of a goal every other game.
McDonald represents the improvement in the youth system at the club, something previous manager Steve Cotterill must be lauded for. After the youth system was allowed to slip under Stan, Steve resurrected it and now we are reaping the rewards.
There is surely nothing better than watching local lads play for the first team having come through the ranks. It is good watching Kyle and Chris McCann playing regularly but to see a Burnley boy in the side would make me incredibly proud.
Once again it was defensive errors that proved our undoing. Coyle again rotated the keepers and Jensen repaid the manager's renewed faith by gifting North End the winner. This came after O'Connor had levelled the scores in the first half following David Unsworth's mistake for the opener.
The defeat means the inquest into the season starts right now.
Looking at the campaign with a sensible head, a top half finish would represent a decent start to the Coyle era. But the sneaking feeling is that with a league as wide open as it has been in years, Burnley have blown a great chance of promotion by failing to put together a consistent run of results.
Errors throughout the side have cost us. Akinbiyi's misses. Goalkeeping howlers. Defensive catastrophes. Poor performances from the midfield. All over the pitch we look weak, and although we technically can still get in that top 6, it looks like Coyle will have a big rebuilding job this summer.
He knows it though, and it should be a busy summer at Turf Moor with lots of transfer dealings. If it isn't, in a league that is bound to be stronger, we may struggle to make an impact.
Once again, the team put itself in a great position with the 1-0 win over Charlton last week, and once again, they blew all their good work with a poor performance riddled with defensive mistakes against an average Wolves side.
The defence that had looked so solid against Pardew's side suddenly looked like a bomb had hit it when Mad Mick's team rolled up.
Now, nearly the last place we would want to go needing a result is probably the 3-sided disgrace of a stadium that is Deepdale. So obviously, Preston away is our next game. North End are in good form at the moment and will be looking to put another three points in the bag to avoid relegation.
We must show that we want it as much as they do. The desire of the players has been called into question this week but personally I think it is stage fright. As soon as the expectation levels rise, usually on the back of a good result, in classic Burnley style - we throw it away. It's just the way it is. We always do it.
In the week that he was named in George Burley's first Scotland squad, Graham Alexander will return to his stomping ground for all those years, after he chose to join PNE instead of us when he left Luton Town.
Alexander was famous at PNE for converting those dodgy penalties they seem to get against us every year. Like the one when Fuller dived between our centre-backs in front of the Cricket Field stand. Like the one where Lee Roche was fouled off the pitch by Richard Cresswell and PNE got a spot-kick for it. Like so many others over the years.
Hopefully though, Alexander's penalty prowess will come in handy for us for the first time on Saturday. It must be our turn for some luck at Deepdale, surely.
Over the last few years we've seen some classic Lancashire derbies between the two sides. There was King Arthur's game, where the big defender notched twice in a 3-2 away win for the Clarets. There was the nightmare 5-3 defeat under Stan at the same ground. There was the 2-1 win at Turf Moor with Bertie Bee rugby-tackling the streaker. This year PNE won a pulsating match 3-2, where the referee was the centre of attention. But my favourite of recent years was last year's home game.
And to sign off for this week, here's how the drama (and that is no exaggeration, I watched the game in my Union in Sunderland and hardly touched my pint I was so gripped!) unfolded:
PS - Love the present Gray gave St. Ledger after the big oaf's own goal. Classic.
Without wanting to seem too melodramatic, this week's double header at Turf Moor with Charlton and Wolves really will decide the outcome of our season.
By all accounts the Stoke perforance was excellent defensively, with a predictable return to the side for Hungarian goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly.
But it was the defenders who really stood out, with almost faultless displays across the back four. Unfortunately a solitary lapse in concentration cost us, with the one ball we allowed to bounce in the area going on to be the equaliser.
The Charlton game tomorrow night will see the return of Andy Gray, just six weeks after he left the club in acrimonious circumstances. My admiration for Gray while he was at the club is well-known, but we have to move on, and hopefully his absence will go on to allow Kyle Lafferty, the scorer at Stoke, to fill the void up front.
Gray is not in good form, but former players always seem to come back to haunt us, so it would not surprise me to see his name adorning a Turf Moor scoresheet again.
The two games this week is the final opportunity to keep matters under our own control, with anything less than four points surely leaving us too far adrift to make any impact on the top six.
Finally this week, the club has announced that it has frozen season ticket prices for the coming season, and has also kept up its Premier League Pledge. Good news, but with attendances already on the light side, a lack of incentives for ST holders combined with the recent freebies for walk-on fans means there will have to be a sufficiently exciting end to the season, as well as some quality additions to the playing staff over the summer, to get season ticket sales anywhere near those of this season.
It's a challenge that Owen Coyle will have to show he is up to over the coming weeks. I have faith in him.
As thrilling as the Watford game was*, the crucial fact coming out of the game is that we still have it all to play for, and that we still have control over our own destiny.
We keep saying it, but the next few games are vital, and momentum will be the all-important factor behind who gets a play-off spot and who doesn't.
Taking a point on Saturday when we looked a beaten side will be huge for the squad, who seem to have a belief about them that they can take a positive result from every game.
I was at the Watford game, my first since Arsenal, and the main thing I noticed about the game was how quickly we tried to get the ball to our wingers. Now, this is obviously a good ploy when you have a player of Elliott's quality, but the central midfield has to have the courage to pass the ball forward as well as sideways. We are grimly predictable at times with our play.
I was so pleased to see Robbie looking back to his impish best. Two great finishes from the bench showed us just what a class act he is and what a huge part he can play in the run-in. It was suggested this week that he may be better coming on as a subsitute, but it does seem like lunacy keeping a player of his talent warming the bench. If it keeps him as fresh as he looked on Saturday it might be a worthwhile idea for Owen Coyle, though, who thought we were magnificent.
I have to agree, on another day we could have won by four or five goals, it could have been another Sheffield Wednesday, or even a repeat of THAT Watford game.
It is impossible to talk about the match without mentioning the misses of Ade Akinbiyi. I love Ade as much as the next Claret, but he had a nightmare. He really should have had three or four goals easily. But Ade will bounce back as ever and probably surprise us all with some quality goals in the next couple of weeks.
It's off to Hull on Tuesday, not the most glamourous of places to visit (one letter away from Hell and all that), but it is the kind of place we must get a result to get in that coveted top six. With our away form, I'm confident we can go there and get at least a point.
To sign off for today, here's a reminder of Blake at his very best.
Also this week, Coyle has spoken about Alex McDonald, a small, pacy striker currently making his way in the reserve side with a record of a goal every other game.
