Should Brian Laws be looking for an alternative career any time soon, he may wish to consider the position of poster boy for Marmite.

Like Marmite, Laws is polarising opinion.

To his supporters, he is the man who inherited a poisoned chalice from the previous manager and is making steady, if unspectacular, progress in keeping Burnley in and around the top six.

His detractors would argue that sixth spot is the minimum requirement this season given the squad and the resources he has at his disposal.

To be fair to both camps, there is merit in both arguments.

Taking over the reins from the club’s most successful manager for a generation was never going to be easy.

Owen Coyle had led the Clarets to the land of milk and honey.

And although the club were not comfortable in the top flight, when Coyle departed for his former club, there was still a realistic chance that Burnley would scrap together sufficient points to survive.

Instead, Laws, pictured below, put the brakes on the attractive football, brought in a raft of uninspiring signings and never looked remotely like keeping the club in the Premier League.

But if relegation was grudgingly accepted, it was with the caveat that a strong promotion challenge would follow this term.

Sadly, the campaign has been stuttering rather than strong.

With the exception of the 4-0 home defeat to Reading, the Clarets had coped reasonably well with the demands of the Championship but is has very much been a case of coping rather than commanding.

Burnley have never suggested that they will take the division by the scruff of the neck in the way that QPR and Cardiff occasionally have.

Winless away from Turf Moor, rarely convincing even in victory and with question marks over the managers selections and strategy, the Burnley public is not united behind Brian Laws.