It’s hard to comprehend now, but it’s just over two years since we set off on Karl Robinson’s version of a Norse funeral. Following a fog-bound victory against Ipswich, the burning casket of his reign was pushed out to sea as we headed off on a seventeen game winless run.

Robinson would be sacrificed to the gods after eight of those games, before, eventually, Liam Manning took over, slowed the decline and restored some order, but not before we slipped dangerously close to the relegation zone.

Despite the catastrophic collapse, we took refuge in the assumption that there’d be a soft landing in the final three games of the season against Cheltenham, Forest Green and Accrington. All three looked entirely winnable, offering enough security to ensure our safety. For a team that had adopted a deep commitment to not winning, this was a touch arrogant.

Anyway, it turned out to be true, we soundly beat Cheltenham and Forest Green deploying the airbag of safety with a loud whumph. For a laugh, while still not mathematically safe, we contrived to lose to Accrington, not that it mattered.

Relatively speaking, our nine-game unbeaten run in the Championship felt similar; it was like we were running down a steep hill, gradually losing our ability to control our momentum. As we careened further, the mind shifted from exhilaration to asking questions about how it might all end; in short, was there a safety net that could be deployed that would avoid us doing any permanent damage?

In a sense Burnley away was the perfect opportunity to bring the unbeaten sequence to an end. Burnley are part of The Big Four, a mini-league at the top of the table fighting for the automatic promotion places. Those four are thirteen points clear of Blackburn in fifth, Burnley have conceded nine goals all season, nobody expected us to get anywhere near the goal, let alone find the net. It turned out to be the controlled euthanasia of our bravado and derring do, executed in a way to create minimal fuss.

There was a sense that Gary Rowett had accepted our fate as well, it wasn’t so much throwing the game, more a strategic weakening with the reintroduction of Sam Long at right-back and Tyler Goodrham after four weeks without a start. It didn’t feel like the selection of a man who expected much, so it became an opportunity to stretch a few legs and see where it took us.

Not that we’re built for a smash and grab anyway, being successful is expensive, being cavalier is extortianate; we live in an age where an underdog story is a couple of humble multi-millionaire film stars leveraging their financial muscle to fly through the divisions. Breaking into the top six of the Championship, let alone the top four is going to take some serious welly. No, our ambitions and efforts need to be measured and conservative, risking everything to beat Burnley wasn’t consistent with that.

The re-introduction of Sam Long drew the Burnley fire meaning he was under pressure from the gun. The common view seemed to be that it exposed the fact Long isn’t a Championship player. This is unfair, Long has proved himself countless times this season, a sustained attack by one of the best teams in the division isn’t a reasonable test of his credentials. Plus, he offers much more including versatility and a willingness to commit to the cause. He’s even willing to take the punishment and draw the gaze away from others for the benefit of the team.

Still, it invited a constant stream of problems which weren’t punished by an opposition who, despite their position in the league, hadn’t scored at home in 2025. It was this rather than our brilliant defence which kept them at bay before we showed our benevolence and popped one in for them.

And that, perhaps, was a glimpse into the dystopian future we ultimately face. It makes sense not to engage with the likes of Burnley as the pickings are always likely to be slim. Equally it makes sense for a team like Burnley to bore their way to promotion by conceding as few goals as possible and strangling any life out of their opponents. 

I don’t blame Scott Parker, it’s not his fault that the thermodynamics of football are tilted towards the tedious, but he’s a very good example of what it produces. Parker, rightly, wants to stay in his role for as long as possible and is unlikely to take risks for mere entertainment. Burnley’s goal has to be promotion before their parachute payments run out, if he can grind his way to that, then he’s relatively safe… right up until he’s loitering around the Premier League relegation zone next season and is sacked.

And we, of course, have to accept that; we are not being beaten by these teams so much as being ground down. Even to the point where the game is little more than a stress test of our resilience rather than a battle for three points. 

In truth, although the result was never really in doubt, we looked more robust than we did at Sunderland, Sheffield United or Leeds – the other members of The Big Four, which I guess is about as much as we can hope for. We may have come out of it without any points, but our dignity remains intact, which sets us up well for the games against Derby and Portsmouth next week.

The difficulty will come when these dynamics become routine and boring. The teams around us are all bored of the status quo because they’ve been wrestling with it for years. As a result, they’re talking their way into crises of varying degrees. Keeping our heads while others are losing theirs may turn out to be even more important than trying to snatch points from these unobtainable teams.