AFTER six weeks without football at Turf Moor Burnley’s much-awaited return to the ground they have made a fortress this season turned into a damp squib.

There’s no shame in losing at home to the second best side in the Premier League but the Clarets failure to break their away day hoodoo over a run of four successive top flight games on the road has ramped up the pressure on home games.

For three quarters of the visit of Tottenham they were in this game without ever really looking like they were going to win it.

But once Jeff Hendrick had failed to clear Christian Eriksen’s corner, allowing Eric Dier to fire Spurs ahead, the game appeared to have gone, and confirmation arrived with Son Heung-Min’s tap in 10 minutes later.

When Burnley got through that run of four straight away games with their gap over the bottom three only diminishing from 10 points to eight it appeared the worst case scenario had been avoided.

Having coasted through the winter without ever looking like they were going to be part of the relegation shake-up, suddenly nerves abound at Turf Moor.

Hull City’s win over West Ham closed the gap to five points and Burnley haven’t won since January 31. They have to rediscover that magic touch at Turf Moor that brought seven successive league and cup wins as 2016 turned to 2017. If they do that and beat Stoke on Tuesday then survival will feel within touching distance once again.

To do that though they will need to find more a bit more creativity to build on the blanks against Sunderland and Spurs, the first time they have failed to score in two straight league games since December 2015.

Those fixtures have brought just five shots on target for the Clarets and they never really threatened Hugo Lloris’ goal on Saturday, even if they did grow into a first half that they probably shaded.

Ashley Barnes headed an early chance from a Matt Lowton cross into the ground and straight to Lloris before heading a Jeff Hendrick cross wide from a difficult position.

It was the visitors who had the best chance and Dele Alli’s failure to hit the back of the net from eight yards was a shock.

Tom Heaton had pushed Christian Eriksen’s strike from a narrow angle out but the ball fell perfectly for Alli, only for his shot to end up in the Jimmy McIlroy stand.

Mauricio Pochettino’s side started the second half brightly and Heaton had to save from Vincent Janssen and Ben Davies, who both tried their luck from the left side of the area.

Burnley’s best outlet for the opening 55 minutes had been Andre Gray. He may not had have a sight of goal but Gray had offered an out ball and he had generally held it up well for others to get forward, so it came as a surprise when he was taken off for Sam Vokes shortly after, with Dyche trying to affect the game by being more ‘robust’ with Vokes and Barnes in attack.

When Spurs took the lead they had been gradually turning up the pressure, but it was a tame way for Burnley to cede the initiative.

Eriksen’s corner went through to the back post but the backtracking Hendrick made a mess of his clearance, only scuffing the ball straight to Dier who took a touch before firing home.

Burnley tried to fight back but Michael Keane fired wide on the turn before Scott Arfield sent a shot over.

And the game was put beyond them when they were caught short of numbers 13 minutes from the end. Eriksen floated a pass out to Alli on the right and he squared for substitute Son to tap home.