HAMMERING square pegs into round holes is fine - until you finally run out of pegs.

And this was the predictable day the wood finally splintered to leave Burnley Football Club at a crossroads.

It has been Steve Cotterill's well-documented gamble to run with a small squad of players in the first few months of his reign, lay down a firm footing and then, hopefully, receive some financial backing to move onwards and upwards.

The first few planks were solid as oak - a new-look defence that, until recently, was the meanest in the Championship.

But the cracks have begun to appear through inevitable injuries and suspensions.

Results have been harder to come by and yet, throughout this impending crisis there still appears to be little help coming the manager's way.

Nobody can lay any blame for this at the door of chairman Barry Kilby, whose own multi-million pound investment in the club, HIS club, means supporters still have a team to watch.

Yet no team can function without its most important commodity - players.

And right now, there are almost as many directors as fit footballers at Turf Moor - a shambolic state of affairs for a professional football club one rung below the Premiership.

So the other board members need to take a long, hard look at themselves this morning if they want the best for Burnley Football Club.

Had John McGreal and Graham Branch not been patched-up and sent out to face an Ipswich Town side pushing for promotion, it's hard to imagine who might have made up the team sheet on Saturday.

For the second game running, the bench consisted of three teenagers, Frenchman Amadou Sanokho - later

affectionately described by Cotterill as "not bad for a two-bob trialist" - and first team coach Mark Yates.

As a former manager would say, a blind man on a galloping horse can see it's just not good enough.

Sadly, some board members appear to be wearing blinkers.

For unless Cotterill is rewarded for his solid, if unspectacular start, it's hard to see anything other than a desperate fight to stave off relegation.

The team itself is good enough - results ground out already this season are testament to that. But when it only takes a few knocks and yellow cards to expose a soft underbelly, you cannot afford to just sit there and wait for it to be tickled!

Tomorrow, Burnley are the focus of the nation's attention when Tottenham Hotspur pitch up at Turf Moor for the Carling Cup fourth round tie.

A quarter-final spot beckons, yet this morning Cotterill will hold a roll call of his walking wounded to see if he can actually raise a team.

Behind the scenes, chief executive Dave Edmundson continues to fund-raise with sponsored bike rides, celebrity dinners, even, let us not forget, knocking on doors with buckets.

Yet whatever the result tomorrow, the club will be some £250,000 richer as a result of a cup run.

That unexpected windfall must have plugged a huge hole. Now, unless some of spent where it really matters, the lifeblood of the club is slowly draining away.

Even the supporters sense this. Crowds are hovering around the 12,000 mark, but you wonder for how long amid such lack of ambition.

The atmosphere inside Turf Moor on Saturday resembled a state funeral as Ipswich marched into a two-goal lead against a Burnley team with four players playing out of position, three right backs, two injured central defenders and one recognised striker.

Not one supporter dared to criticise. They all knew the futility of the situation and the big question is how many will continue to shell out hard earned cash when they do not see any end result?

My guess? Not long. And if that does not set alarm bells ringing around the boardroom table, then nothing will.

Ipswich set more alarm bells ringing in the Burnley defence even before they took a 15th minute lead. Jim Magilton smacked the underside of the crossbar in an eerie repeat of events at Portman Road three weeks earlier.

Sadly, there was to be no similar result for the Clarets, who fell behind soon after when keeper Kelvin Davis cleared upfield and Bent raced away from a half-fit John McGreal to slide the ball past Brian Jensen.

Manfully, Burnley tried to fight back and Robbie Blake was only denied his first goal in five games by the narrowest of margins - a linesman dubiously ruling him offside as he pounced on Tony Grant's through ball and lashed the ball past Davis.

Sanokho then almost caught out Davis with a 30-yard drive that the keeper spilled and grabbed at the second attempt.

With tactical changes occurring all over the place following Frank Sinclair's early withdrawal with a calf injury, the impressive Mo Camara made two bursts forward from centre half before changing places with emergency left back Graham Branch.

And from the second run, Camara forced Davis into another smart save with a long-distance drive.

Blake came closest to earning a deserved equaliser in the 35th minute with a trademark free kick that struck the top of the crossbar.

Such was the Clarets superiority at this stage that Ipswich registered only their second attempt on goal in first half stoppage time as Tommy Miller forced Jensen into evasive action.

But Town have a genuine goal threat in Bent, who finally sealed brave Burnley's fate in the 65th minute, cutting in from the right wing and firing a bullet into Jensen's top right hand corner for a wonderful strike.

Micah Hyde and James O'Connor both responded with efforts that were off target, while Bent could have completed his hat-trick near the end before Tommy Miller saw his shot well saved by Jensen.

But by then, an alarming number of fans had trudged silently away from Turf Moor.

The equally deafening silence from the boardroom only compounds that misery.