EIGHT clean sheets in 13 games, five in seven at home – it’s not bad going for a goalkeeper.
Yet Burnley fans are still finding fault with Lee Grant.
Call me a cynic, but it’s as if they are looking for it.
Some may berate out of loyalty to ‘The Beast’, given Brian Jensen’s long service to the club.
For others, the problem may stem from the source of his signature.
Brian Laws was the man who brought the stopper to Turf Moor, in the summer of 2010, and the stigma appears to have been attached to him ever since.
Others have suffered a similar fate and never succeeded in shaking it.
Leon Cort came with a whopping £1.5million pricetag that through no fault of his own he failed to live up to. The pressure to keep the Clarets in the Premier League rested on the ex-Stoke defender’s shoulders as Laws’ first signing.
Chris Iwelumo wasn’t a fans’ favourite either, and few were sad to see him leave for Watford in the summer.
There have been exceptions to the rule, most notably loan star Jack Cork.
Fans also grew to find more pluses in Danny Fox after an indifferent start to Turf Moor life, although any goodwill was gone when he left for Southampton at the start of the season.
It took a while for Clarets supporters to warm to Ross Wallace and Dean Marney. The reason they now have is because both have had their best spells with the club under Laws’ successor, Eddie Howe.
But Grant’s rapport with the fans is something that has yet to be built up.
Perhaps it’s because he followed Laws from Sheffield Wednesday, eventually, that some put question marks against him.
But, like Wallace and Marney, Howe has certainly brought the best out in Grant. The 29-year-old is enjoying his best run and spell in the side, and is proving Jensen’s toughest competition for some time.
* HATS off to the Burnley media department for their programme ‘Claret & You’ being shortlisted for a Football League Award ... again.
Although their nomination in the marketing category is a first for the club, the programme has been made the cut in each of the last three years that it has qualified for the awards (the Premier League season of 2009/10 didn’t count).
Winners in 2009, the Clarets face competition this year from Brighton & Hove Albion (Seagull), Huddersfield Town (Give us an H), Notts County (The Mag), Swindon Town (Swindon) and Torquay United (TQ1).
* FORMER Burnley loanee Sam Vokes continued his goal streak for different clubs in midweek.
His first for new club Brighton, in a 2-2 against Millwall on Tuesday night, was his seventh league goal for six different teams.
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