ROSS Wallace thought he had left his left back days behind him.

But with Burnley down on their luck in the injury department, the winger put his hand up to fill the void.

When Ben Mee went off at Portsmouth with what turned out to be a small fracture of his back, Wallace and Chris McCann were manager Eddie Howe’s only options to replace the defender, with Daniel Lafferty in the treatment room and Brian Easton out of favour.

Three wins and a clean sheet later, the Scot is satisfied with his contribution out of position. But he doesn’t want it to be long term.

“Hopefully I’ll be back on the wing again soon,” said Wallace, who has previous experience at left back for former clubs Celtic and Sunderland.

But with boss Howe encouraging his full backs to get forward, the 26-year-old has still been able to make an impact in attack – notably setting up Danny Ings for his first goal for the club against Birmingham.

It is deliv-ering such quality in the final third that has made him the club’s leading assist maker, with eight, ahead of Junior Stanislas this season.

“It hasn’t stopped me getting forward,” smiled Wallace.

“With Junior playing in front of me, he is a right footer so he comes inside and I can go up on the outside.

“We haven’t got a big squad, so we didn’t have a lot of options when Ben got injured.

“The manager pulled me and Chris McCann and said ‘I need one of you to go there’, so I said I would.

“I’ve played there a few times before and it’s all right for a couple of weeks but I want to be back playing as a winger.”

He is likely to remain in the back four for this afternoon’s visit of Coventry City, when Burnley will bid to cling on to faint play-off hopes.

The Clarets must bridge a six-point gap to sixth place in the last four games, while also relying on the teams above them to slip up.

“It’s certainly within our reach, but we are depending on people dropping points and we have got to make sure we get points,” said Wallace, who scored the first of Burnley’s goals in a 2-1 win over Coventry the last time the two teams met, in October.

“This season it has probably gone away for us now.

“I think on paper we are where most people thought we would be (in the table), but I think as players and the manager we would say we have underachieved.

“But we have got to end it on a high, like the manager says.

“We had a good run a few months back and if we can put that together again, who knows.

“It’s a bit far fetched at the moment, but we’ll see what happens.

“We’ve got good games coming up, so it’s a good end to the season.”

The former Preston winger added: “I think next season is going to be key for us.

“You do look to the future, but we want to finish on a high this season. That’s the most important thing.

“If we win (today) we’ve got a massive game against Leicester on Tuesday. Maximum points in the next two games, we’ll see what kind of chance we’ve got.”