BURNLEY boss Stan Ternent knows that the race for promotion is "a marathon not a sprint" but his opposite number Ray Graydon believes the Clarets have what it takes to last the pace.

"It wouldn't surprise me if they were somewhere near the top by next April," claimed the Saddlers boss.

"They came up last year and did better than expected and Stan's got it going a bit better this year. They will have learned from the experience of being up there last season."

A fourth league defeat on the trot was a major blow to Graydon, especially after his side had come back from two down.

"We are not a bad side but Burnley deserved to win although for parts of the game I thought we passed the ball better than them," he said. "They defended a bit better and moved the ball well around our box in the second half.

"The players worked hard to get back into the game and at 2-2 I knew there were plenty more goals still in the match. The momentum was with us and I may have changed things to at least avoid defeat but we could not keep it at 2-2 long enough for me to do that.

"The problem is we are not defending very well as a group and that is what cost us in the end."

Ternent was delighted with the way his team responded once they had been pulled back to all square and said: "I thought the lads did extremely well.

"We created a lot of chances and scored a lot of goals. For 10-15 minutes we lost the plot a bit and Mitchell Thomas showed a bit of ring rustiness but we got some fantastic goals."

He was particularly pleased with Paul Cook's lovely goal and he said: "We all know that Cooky has got that vision.

"But the fact we are top is credit to all the players, they work extremely hard. I changed things and although we were sometimes at sixes and sevens we got back to normal."