Stock makes call for Clarets to back Austin (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Stock makes call for Clarets to back Austin

8:22am Friday 8th March 2013 in Football By Suzanne Geldard, Burnley FC reporter

BRIAN Stock has called for the Clarets to take collective responsibility in front of goal, and take the pressure off top scorer Charlie Austin.

Burnley’s form has dipped because of their lack of firepower, with just one win from eight games.

Only three goals were scored in a winless February, with Austin among them, scoring first in a 2-2 draw at Peterborough to mark his comeback from injury.

The marksman, right, took his tally for the season to 26 with strikes against Charlton and Barnsley.

They were his first back-to-back goals since early November.

But Austin is lacking support, as Chris McCann, Martin Paterson and Junior Stanislas – the next nearest scorers – have only four each.

“Charlie obviously scored a load of goals earlier in the season and one or two of us probably need to chip in with a few more,” said Stock, who has yet to get off the mark since joining the Clarets on the eve of the campaign.

“It’s something that if you could work on day in day out in the training ground I’m sure the gaffer would do it.

“One of us might have to just take a bit more authority and take a few more shots and take a more of a positive approach going into games.

“Everyone needs to chip in. Charlie’s scored a lot of goals this year and one or two others have chipped in.

“But we’re a team and we need to all stick together and whether it be Charlie scoring or the centre halves scoring the main objective is to get three points.”

Burnley went three games without a goal last month, but Stock insists it was not for the want of trying.

“If we’d have got a goal against Middlesbrough I think it would have opened the game up and they would have had to come at us a bit more but full credit to them for sitting in and getting a clean sheet, which is probably what they needed,” said Stock, who believes Burnley have what it takes to make a late push for the play-offs in the last 10 games.

“We firmly believe we are good enough for the top six but that’s something with the last few results we’ve come away from that maybe.

“As a group we’ve taken a game as it comes.

“But we’ve got nothing to fear and if we can go into games full of confidence and really give it a good go you never know where it could take us.”