CHRIS McCann has urged Burnley to set themselves up for a top six surge in 2012 by bringing an end to their home hiccups.

The Clarets have made a steady rise from fourth bottom to the top half of the Championship thanks to a run of four wins from five games.

Their only blip in that revival was a late 1-0 defeat to Portsmouth, which took their total home losses to five this season.

The Turf Moor fortress they have relied on in previous seasons has faltered. But McCann hopes that is all set to change as 2011 draws to a close with back-to-back home games against Doncaster Rovers on Boxing Day and Hull on New Year’s Eve, before they head to Leeds United on January 2.

“We have been inconsistent at home. If we can sort that out I don’t think we’ll be too far off,” said the Clarets captain.

“I don’t know what it is about playing at home. Maybe the run of form at the start of the season probably made us a bit jittery and a bit nervous.

“We weren’t on a good run playing at home, and because we’re a young squad and things weren’t going right for us we probably did get a little bit nervous.

“But we’ve done fantastically well away from home, and if we can carry that away form into our home games and put a run of two or three wins together it will make a massive difference to us.

“Hopefully we can hit a little bit of form around the Christmas period, which hasn’t really been our strong point in the last couple of years.

“If we can hit a good run here we’ll be in the mix come January/February time.”

The Clarets captain added: “Most of the games we’ve played at home we’ve been in with a shout of winning, bar Middlesbrough when we didn’t play particularly well.

“We had a good win on Saturday and hopefully we can get another three points against Doncaster on Boxing Day.

“I think, over Christmas, we’ve got three pretty winnable games. If we’re going to be doing anything this year, we’ve got to look at that.

“I think we can take maximum points from all the games.

“We beat Hull at their ground and I think we owe Leeds after they scored two late goals against us.

“It’s going to be an interesting time, and if we can be in the mix come the end of January we’ve got every chance.”

McCann played a key role in Burnley’s last home win, scoring twice in their 4-0 thrashing of Ipswich.

He went on to spark a courageous comeback at West Ham with the equaliser at Upton Park, before Sam Vokes grabbed the winner from the bench.

“We’ve been relying heavily on Jay (Rodriguez) and Chas (Charlie Austin) to score and it’s nice when they can take a bit of pressure off themselves because they know goals are going to come from other areas.

“I think everyone needs to start chipping in with a couple of goals, and if you can get them from all over the pitch you’re onto a winning thing.

“Hopefully we can put that into the Boxing Day game,” said McCann, who is plotting to build on a gritty 1-0 win at Brighton, where Burnley played against nine men for almost 80 minutes.

“It wasn’t a pretty game to play in, they were a physical side to say the least.

“The lads have a lot of bruises and marks on them from the game, but a win’s a win.

“It’s a results business. It doesn’t really matter if we win 1-0 of 5-0, the three points on the board are what you take any day of the week.”