BURNLEY manager Adrian Heath admitted today that Burnley are back in the relegation melting pot.
A 1-0 defeat at home to Bristol Rovers, coupled with Carlisle United's 2-0 victory over York, brought the Cumbrians back to within three points of the Clarets.
Now Burnley require four points from their final three games, should Carlisle win their last two, to make mathematically sure of staying in the Second Division.
But a defiant Heath stressed that Burnley's fate still lie in their own hands.
"The door is definitely open again and I feel we need three points from our last three games to shut it tight," said Heath.
"It's not the ideal scenario but our destiny is still in our hands.
"We need not depend on others if we complete our own task."
Last night's Clarets performance failed to measure up to the standard reached against Swindon and Notts County.
Heath put this down to over-anxiety in front of their home fans.
"Our last two away performances were a lot better than this one," confirmed Heath.
"The confidence is just not there at home. "I think it's an accumulation of things and the crowd is certainly a factor.
"But it's up to us to give them something to cheer about. There wasn't much to cheer last night. In terms of construction and quality of work we weren't near good enough.
"We needed an early goal to settle us down.
"And we had chances, not well-worked chances but opportunities to score nonetheless.
"But we didn't take them."
Marcus Stewart, instead, took his in the 64th minute, a goal Heath was unhappy about conceding.
"Gary Parkinson hasn't attacked the ball and you just can't afford to give a player of Stewart's quality a free chance on goal," said Heath.
"He let the ball come across when he shouldn't have.
"You must attack the ball in both boxes, a) when you want to score and b) when you want to defend.
"I put a team out to win this match. "We were playing three across the back and trying to push our full backs as far up as possible.
"But we just don't have the quality to hold the ball as we need to, in order to take full advantage of the system."
Once again, Heath singled out David Eyres for special praise.
The 32-year-old from Liverpool has slotted naturally into the wing back position and last night was about the most dangerous player in a Claret shirt.
"David Eyres tried to make things happen," said Heath.
"There was a buzz about him when he collected the ball and he knew exactly what he was going to try to do."
Ex-Claret Martin Dobson has been appointed youth development officer at Bolton.
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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