STEVE Cotterill saw his Burnley side sneak into the play off positions and joked: "Does the season finish now?"

However, the Clarets boss is refusing to get carried away after a seventh league win in nine games hauled the club up to sixth in the Championship.

He said: "Someone told me straight after the game that we were sixth. Does the season finish now?

"It's always satisfying to come back after the break and pick up three points straight away and we are delighted with that.

"But more importantly it's the points we are interested in and that gives us a healthy total and puts more distance between ourselves and the teams at the bottom, where we were early on.

"It's nice looking and seeing that we have jumped above a few more teams, but there's a lot of football to be played yet."

Cotterill added: "A TV reporter's first words after the game were 'seven wins out of nine'.

"I said it was one out of one because we need to put the run we've been on to bed.

"To have won as many games as we have is a credit to the lads. They have been magnificent and even the boys who are not getting games are training as hard as anyone - people like Gifton Noel-Williams, who is used to playing first team football but hasn't been in the starting line up for a long time.

"They all have a good spirit among them and the attitude and commitment is unquestionable."

John Spicer's second goal for the club earned a fourth straight victory to keep the mood in the Clarets camp buoyant.

And Cotterill felt his side were good value for the win, which was ground out after Burnley had two goals disallowed before City staged a late rally that almost earned them a point.

"I saw Leicester play at Preston a few weeks back in a 0-0 draw and they have kept a few clean sheets on the bounce, so we thought it would be a 1-0." insisted the Burnley manager.

"I thought the whole back four were outstanding because they had nine players in their side who were six-foot plus.

"They are a big team - the biggest we've played this season - and they are full of quality so that was our fear.

"They probably had more possession in the second half, but we had the better chances and I didn't see anything wrong with Ade's disallowed goal.

"The defender just got the wrong side and was out-muscled by Ade and the rest was history.

"Their keeper made a great save to tip Ade's second half shot onto the post and then there was John McGreal's early effort and another where Ade could have lifted the ball over the goalkeeper, so I feel we had the best chances and could have wrapped the game up a lot earlier instead of it being a nervy last 10 minutes."