ON THE lips of every Clarets fan on Saturday night after giving away another two-goal lead, the second time in four days, was ‘what is going on?’ When the second goal went in after 16 minutes, superbly taken by Danny Ings, I said to a fan next to me: ‘we have a cushion now, we can win this’. How wrong can you be?

A win would have taken us up into 12th place and sitting comfortable in the league table.

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But it didn’t happen as Palace manager Alan Pardew switched Wilfried Zaha to the right and he went and gave Ben Mee a game he will want to forget.

I think Ben is a top player, and he just had one of those days against Zaha, who has an awful lot of talent and is unplayable on his day.

It’s a learning curve for Ben, as it is for a lot of our players, and they will improve from that.

Last season we had a tremendous defensive record, but now playing with the big boys we are finding it difficult to keep a clean sheet.

From this moment in time it’s going to be more difficult.

But the character and determination of the whole squad gives me the feeling that we can rise above all of these setbacks.

We will be looking over our shoulders for the rest of the season. All of the 16 games left are cup finals, there are no easy points to collect.

But I’m sure the players, having had a taste of the Premier League, will give their all for survival.

I’m sure the manager will be down on the training pitch with the players emphasising the importance of keeping possession.

We didn’t do this against Palace and they made us pay for it.

We gave the ball away far too easily and to me that was ultimately the difference in the two teams.

As we are now out of the FA Cup I am sure Sean Dyche will recognise the problem and put the enforced break in the league to good use.

I honestly believe it was a one-off. In my opinion it was a below-par performance, but it can be corrected on the training pitch.

I know, as a former player, that the performance was a poor one and the players themselves will want to make amends for it.

I have every faith in them and I’m sure they know they owe it to the fans to go up to the north east against Sunderland, who are also struggling, one place above us, and get the three points.

I know in my heart we can do this. The fans will travel to this match with high hopes. There will be a lot of Claret scarves on show in that game, so let’s not let them down.

We’re at a crucial stage in the season with two more games to go against sides in and around us in the table. The loss to Palace means there is a bit more pressure on the games against Sunderland and West Brom.