WHAT do you get when you pit Burnley against Barnet?

An unbeaten record against the London club for the Clarets, and promotion.

Well, at least that’s the story so far.

In the 1991/92 season Burnley picked up four points from a possible six against the Bees and went on to be crowned Fourth Division champions.

They celebrated a similar return in 1993/94 and went up via the old Division Two play-offs.

In 1999/2000, after beating Barnet in the FA Cup first round – Paul Cook scoring the only goal of the game – they entered the Championship as runners up to Preston North End.

These are omens that football fans cling to when looking for reasons to be optimistic, and Tuesday night’s Carling Cup win over the League Two side begs the question, can history repeat itself?

The competition was certainly kind to the Clarets three seasons ago – easing the frustration of a poor start to the season, which – ultimately ended so well.

Parallels can be drawn between then and now. With Eddie Howe’s men still searching for their first Championship win, fans will look back to the 2008/09 campaign and use that as a crumb of comfort.

It’s only right that past glories are celebrated.

But if Burnley are to move forward their focus has to be on the present and the future.

Recent changes in personnel might have appeared radical at the time. Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight Howe might have opted to keep hold of one or two, but injuries to strikers Martin Paterson and new boy Danny Ings could not have been foreseen, nor could the quick sale of left back Danny Fox. Change has been necessary to blow off the cobwebs of relegation and provide a fresh impetus at Turf Moor.

But it’s not just about the players on the pitch. The Burnley boss has been working hard behind the scenes to engineer change off it.

He has been the driving force behind making their Gawthorpe training camp a more welcoming environment for his troops, a state of the art gym has been installed in the old leisure centre to make them physically stronger for their Championship challenge, and a 3G surface has been laid in that building too, providing a good surface for the players to work on when it’s too wet and windy on the exposed Gawthorpe fields.

Burnley haven’t looked back since they last beat Barnet.

They shouldn’t start now.

Read the Clarets jury only in today's Lancashire Telegraph newspaper.