IT’S been a while since we’ve been disappointed with a Burnley performance but the first thing I’d do is to urge people not to get too hung up on it.

Yes, we were pretty poor from the first minute to the last against Crystal Palace on Saturday but it’s only the second really poor performance of the campaign, albeit at home against a relegation rival.

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Sean Dyche said after the match that he wouldn’t be dwelling on it too much and I’m sure that once the port mortem is out of the way today or tomorrow, he’ll make sure the players are focused on the next game and not what has gone before.

On Saturday we somehow found ourselves 2-0 to the good, Ben Mee’s superb back post header and Danny Ings’ calm strike giving us a comfortable lead that we perhaps were a little lucky to have.

Palace, in all fairness, were causing us plenty of problems, especially when Alan Pardew switched Wilfried Zaha on the visitors’ right, sensing somewhat correctly that he’d get more space out of Mee than he would out of Kieran Trippier.

The Londoners passed the ball better, kept the ball better and when the first goal came before half time you just felt that the tide was turning massively.

A super ball into the box was scuffed by James McArthur and the ball fell kindly for Dwight Gayle who made no mistake from close range.

We started the second half poorly and Palace were soon level, Jason Puncheon driving a low shot beyond Tom Heaton after we backed off him.

We briefly threatened without ever testing the Palace resolve and when McArthur cleared a neat Michael Keane volley off the line, the feeling was it wasn’t going to be our day.

A point at that stage would have been gratefully received but Gayle had the final say, latching onto Puncheon’s delightful ball over Trippier and smashing home from a tight angle.

I hate being critical but if I did have one complaint: it was that the subs weren’t on quick enough.

I think most of us in the press box could see we needed a bit of fresh impetus with 20 minutes to go yet it was into stoppage time before Ross Wallace and Marvin Sordell were introduced.

A minor criticism in what has been a superb season so far.

Losing a second game in a week having been 2-0 to the good – we scored two inside the opening 10 minutes at Tottenham in the cup replay before going down 4-2 – is not ideal but the sooner we forget about it the better.