Caught lacking in Lancashire

Disharmony done right can be therapeutic. It's counter to intuition for discerning West Yorkshire ears, but the discordant noises coming over the Pennines soothe like a lullaby. Nobody would think of putting these sounds together, a grumbling bass of discontent beneath a spiky rap of woe. But put your hand to your ear, take a deep breath, and listen. It could be just what you need.

"It breaks my heart, at the end of the game," Burnley manager Scott Parker told the press last weekend, after his beaten team left Turf Moor's pitch to a chorus of milltown boos. "It was only four months ago that I was standing on the balcony in the town centre with a Burnley shirt on," he went on, as if he was pleading with Sharon to stay with him and he can turn his market stall around, "and all of us were celebrating and the fans were right with us. Within four months, that quickly changes."

Maybe that's part of Parker's problem, that Lancashire just isn't the place for rapid changes. The town is as disorientated as the day the Spinning Jenny was invented. The people, after years of Sean Dyche's voice blending in with the steam powered factory hum and Vincent Kompany's adopted Manc accent, can't adapt to the Lambeth Walk abrasion of their nattily dressed coach. And the football team, that they all want to be proud of, is losing every week.

Except when they play Leeds, obviously, which along with a victory over Sunderland at the start of the season allowed Burnley fans to imagine a continuation and mild correction of last season, winning smoothly and declaring themselves top of the three promoted dogs. That was a mirage. Since beating our Peacocks and, in the next game, Wolves, they've lost seven straight games. They've conceded sixteen in those matches. They even let in three to West Ham. The Burnley Express is entertaining reading at the moment: