Burnley preview

We go into today's game having drawn our last 4 consecutive games, however our away form is somewhat RIDICULOUS. In the last 2 seasons combined we won 3 away games, this season we've won 10 so far (albeit in the championship). Now I know it's a lower league but that's no small feat, away games must have been tough for us psychologically last season but this season it's something the players cope with extremely well.

The reason is quite ironic really; we're drawing at home because teams come to Upton Park and set up to frustrate us (obviously we are under performing too) and that's our game plan in pretty much every away game! So as frustrating as it is, if we hadn't used the same tactic that's frustrating us at home in our away games then we probably wouldn't have won the amount of away games that we have and our home form would really be costing us right about now.

It is strange that our best unbeaten run all season is actually one of our worst runs at the same time. We've won 2 and drawn 6 of our last 8 games but that doesn't tell the whole story, as we all know too well. In some games we have played awful and deserved nothing, in others we've played reasonably well and not taken our chances.

A lot of people will disagree, but I actually echoed a lot of what BFS said after the game on the night; the booing at half time was ridiculous as we were the better team in the first half and deserved to be in front. The second half was no different, with their wonder goal and one or two chances at the end apart we should have won by a distance so I guess it's just unfortunate that the match was during this current streak of draws because had we drawn that game having played that well on the back of a couple wins, the players wouldn't have been booed off.

The problem on Tuesday was playing Tomkins in midfield for me. He is an outstanding young player, of that there's not doubt but he's not a midfielder. Why put our best centre back in the middle of the park where we could have a more creative player like Lansbury? I know his role was to hold but he was forward quite a lot on Tuesday and he's just not an attacking player (minus his aerial ability).

Here's the team I would put out today:

Green
J O'B Tomkins Faye Linda
Lansbury Noble Nolan(c) Taylor
Baldock Maynard

Subs: Henderson, Collins, Morrison, Maynard, Carew

Earlier in the week I predicted a 0-0 draw today having won our last 2 games, so hopefully this one's wrong too! I'm gonna go with an edgy 1-0 win for the hammers.

COME ON YOU IRONS!