WHEN you have gone eight games without a win and have just been thumped 7-4 at home, rediscovering a winning formula must be easier said than done.

But it was all Greek to Stan Ternent as his double change paid dividends at both ends of the pitch.

The debacle against Watford prompted the Burnley boss to bring back his two Greek internationals, Nik Michopoulos and Dimitri Papadopoulos in place of the hapless Marlon Beresford and midfielder Tony Grant respectively.

His reward was to see the young striker score the vital opening goal and the more experienced keeper make a couple of crucial saves in the second half. Greece lightning struck twice.

Ternent had admitted last week that Papadopoulos, scorer of an Under-21 international hat-trick a week earlier, would get his chance and he marked his first start for almost seven months with his sixth goal of the season.

Four minutes before the break Preston keeper David Lucas produced a great save to keep out a Steve Davis header but Papadopoulos somehow squeezed the ball home from an almost impossible angle.

"Dimi took his chance well, it was a tight angle but he put it away," said Ternent, "He'll do that and he will be a good player for us.

"Everybody wants to play but when they are all fit and up and running, the strongest part of the team is up front."

The fact is that all four of his fit strikers played last night, three of them in more withdrawn roles but with clear instructions to get forward and support lone front man Gareth Taylor.

In fact just days after the Grand National Ternent took a big game gamble against North End - and won!

In naming a five man midfield he might have been accused of playing safe but not when that only contained one midfielder, Paul Weller. He was joined by defender Davis and then Papadopoulos and Ian Moore down the flanks and Robbie Blake in the middle.

It was Blake who got the crucial second goal with a fabulous 30 yard free kick that left Lucas clutching air as he tried to keep it out of the top right hand corner of his goal.

The big controversy of the night came from the fact that it was not the first brilliant free kick to cross the line as USA international Eddie Lewis had struck a beauty for North End with the game goalless in the 31st minute.

"I was not pleased at half time," he admitted. "I'm not faulting the referee because for him to give the goal would be wrong but I think the linesman should have been more in touch."

Television replays showed the ball was over the line but Brown also acknowledged that he had words with his strike pair of Simon Lynch and Richard Cresswell who got in each other's way when all they had to do was nod the ball into the empty net after the Lewis free kick had bounced out.

"We had a good goal disallowed but I am more concerned about the free kick given against Chris Lucketti after a perfectly good header," he added. "They scored from the phase of play that followed."

For much of the first half there had been little in the game and the chances were few and far between. Gareth Taylor, fresh from his first ever hat-trick, did get in a couple of shots and Burnley looked a threat whenever the ball came into the area with Davis and Taylor terrorising the defence.

Brown admitted he had been concerned about the aerial threat and when the skipper rose to meet Lee Briscoe's corner he was only denied the opener when Graham Alexander produced a reflex header off the line to remind people why defenders are positioned on the post at set pieces.

It was ten minutes after they got the break that they have so patently lacked in recent weeks that the Clarets made full use of it and the sense of relief as they took the lead was palpable.

Not since they had scored first at Millwall had Burnley led a match, more than a month ago.

But the important thing was keeping it and as they were pushed back by Preston at the start of the second half, the resolve so lacking against Watford was there in spades. And no one was doing more for the cause than Graham Branch, starting his first game in the unfamiliar role of centre back.

He and Mark McGregor had a tough time against the impressive Richard Cresswell who was the first to force a save from Michopoulos in the 56th minute. The striker created time and space for himself in the area and his shot had to be tipped over the bar.

Five minutes later Blake smashed his stunning free kick into the net, seconds after Lucas had kept out a left foot drive.

Ternent felt that killed the game and it certainly took the wind out of the visitors' sails but seven minutes before the end Michopoulos was called into serious action for the second time. Alexander's free kick looked as if it might have been deflected but the Greek star still managed to turn it over.

His later catch from a Cresswell header was simpler but he deserved his third successive clean sheet, following his last two matches in the FA Cup replay against Grimsby and then in the league win at Coventry. In fact he has now let in just one goal in his last four Burnley games, a record that will make it tough for Beresford to dislodge him before the end of the season.

But the shut-out owed as much to the effort of the outfield players, their determination to put right what had gone wrong just days before. Now the bad run has been ended, Burnley fans will be hoping that a good one has just started.

BURNLEY 2 (Papadopoulos 41, Blake 61)

PRESTON NORTH END 0

Attendance: 12,425

At Turf Moor