GOOD news: the last time Burnley recorded three consecutive clean sheets in the top flight of English football, they survived with plenty to spare – finishing 14th out of the 22 runners.

That was in 1968/69 when Leeds ended the season at the head of the old Division One, Manchester City only finished one point and one place above us and Bob Lord’s zealous stewardship of the club led sports journalist Arthur Hopcraft to label him ‘the Khrushchev of Burnley’.

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The difference between the lock-outs recorded by Harry Potts’ Clarets and those masterminded under Sean Dyche is that the former’s yielded maximum points.

In many ways the comparison is both fatuous and unfair – football was a different game then.

Yet one thing remains constant, only by scoring goals will you win football matches.

Most aspect of Burnley’s game are excellent. The defence is manifestly solid, the approach play is fine and the shape, energy and organisation are all first rate.

But at the same time there’s no point ignoring the rather large elephant in the room which has ‘one goal in nine hours of competitive football’ painted on its hide.

The problem is that whereas Potts was able to call on the likes of such top-end performers as Ralph Coates, Willie Morgan, Andy Lochhead and a young Frank Casper, Sean Dyche has had to contend with losing 40-plus goals through injuries to Danny Ings and Sam Vokes, while trying to bed in Lukas Jutkiewicz and Marvin Sordell in one of the most demanding and financially skewed leagues in world football.

The obvious way to address this dilemma would have been to go out and buy a proven goalscorer in the summer.

But with even Championship players such as Ross McCormack, Leonardo Ulloa and Troy Deeney being valued anywhere between £8m and £11m, this clearly wasn’t an option.

The next stop would have been the loan market, but clubs are not generally in the habit of lending out their top marksmen.

Of all the strikers at the club, Jutkiewicz looks the most likely at present to find a way through.

His performance on Saturday was bullish, brutish and brilliant.

All he, and the rest of Burnley’s fit forwards can do, is keep at it until something drops for them. And it will.

One last word on 1968/69.

The two teams relegated from the top flight that season? Leicester City and QPR.