Nightmare is all too real!

Stan Ternent's take on 2003 was a little less grandiose. "An absolute nightmare" was how he summed up a year he will be more than glad to see the back of.

But just like the worst nightmare, one can only hope the Clarets awake from their current slumber with a sudden jolt. Because unless the New Year brings about a dramatic change in fortunes, it will be relegation-related insomnia that takes its place!

Make no mistake, this defeat reeked of the dreaded 'R' word. Too good to go down? Don't you believe it.

Better sides than Burnley have found, to their cost, that failing to win matches that are there for the taking eventually takes its toll.

Once again, yesterday, there can be no doubting the gulf that existed between Burnley and their back-pedalling opponents.

For the best part of an hour, chances came and went and Stoke mopped their brows and regrouped for the next wave.

It may not have been as incessant as the recent defeats at Preston and Crewe, but certainly only one goalkeeper was going to need his kit throwing in the wash!

But you sense that all visiting managers might now adopt this similar approach to playing Burnley.

Soak up the pressure and bide your time because sooner or later, someone in a claret and blue shirt will make a mistake.

Step forward Graham Branch, who looked absolutely crestfallen after a game where, for one split second, he found himself on the wrong side of Ade Akinbiyi.

The result was depressingly familiar to anyone who has followed this annus horribilis closely.

Burnley put their recent worries behind them to once again make a bright start to proceedings.

Within 90 seconds, giant Dutch keeper Ed De Goey made a pig's ear of Dean West's cross and Ian Moore, lurking off the far post, somehow headed against the woodwork with the goal gaping.

Almost instantly, Brian Jensen punted the ball upfield to deny Akinbiyi and Ian Moore just lost out in a chase with Wayne Thomas.

But the lull that followed allowed Stoke to gain a foothold in the game, with twin towers Gifton Noel-Williams and Akinbiyi - the latter resembling a heavyweight boxer wearing red mittens - looking to cause problems as their team mates formed two solid banks of four.

Yet, despite that formidable barrier, the threat was still very real in the Stoke area and Paul Weller was almost the unlikely scorer with a towering header from Mo Camara's sweet cross.

David May was also the surprise candidate to fire in a quickly taken free-kick from distance into De Goey's grateful grasp as he lined up his wall.

Richard Chaplow's control then let him down as he shaped to shoot following a sublime four-man move involving Robbie Blake, Luke Chadwick and Camara.

And as Burnley continued their first half assault, Chadwick just failed to find the target with a near post toe-poke and Weller again rose to plant a header just over the angle.

It took unambitious Stoke 35 minutes to force anything resembling a goalscoring chance - and when it came it was an almost apologetic swing of the boot from John Eustace that threatened City's fans more than Brian Jensen.

But their tactics at the opposite end continued to frustrate the Clarets as they tried to pick a complicated lock.

The player most likely to find the right combination was Blake, and two minutes before the break he looked to have done exactly that with a moment of magic.

Three times he spun to corkscrew Marcus Hall into the turf and his low cross fizzed into the danger zone.

Chaplow was first to meet the ball with a lunge, but the ball flew off John Halls' backside as he guarded the line and somehow he smuggled the ball away.

City, already hampered by the early loss of Gerry Taggart, suffered a further blow in the 50th minute as De Goey limped off to be replaced by Neil Cutler.

But, while the chips were down, City suddenly struck to silence Turf Moor.

Akinbiyi got himself on the right side of Branch to receive Eustace's angled ball and beat the advancing Jensen with ease.

Suddenly, Burnley lost all their pent-up steam and organisation and sub Kris Commons almost made things worse with a shot on the turn that just cleared the bar.

Misplaced passes hardly helped the Clarets cause as they went through a painful spell of squandering possession.

And from such a moment down the left flank, Noel-Williams fed Akinbiyi, who beat the offside trap and was only denied by an instinctive save from Jensen to cap a faultless afternoon.

At the opposite end, Cutler was still being well protected by his defence.

That task got harder with 23 minutes remaining as Marcus Hall, booked moments earlier for a horrendous foul on West, clipped Paul Weller's heel and was sent off by whistle-happy Premiership ref Dermot Gallagher.

But as often happens, the 10-men dig a little deeper and the best Burnley could muster was a weak drive from Chaplow that Cutler batted away to safety.

The game fizzled out and the fans drifted home. Long after they had gone, a young boy indulged in a boyhood dream of playing on Turf Moor by himself.

A neat bit of keepy-uppy in the penalty area at the Cricket Field End was followed by a rasping 12-yard drive that cannoned off the inside of the post and rolled along the line and out.

He had to be a Burnley fan. He just had to be....

BURNLEY 0

STOKE 1 (Akinbiyi 53)