9:54am Tuesday 16th March 2010
By Suzanne Geldard
STEVEN Thompson has told Burnley to start turning performances into points – or risk going down with a whimper.
The Clarets missed the chance to climb out of the bottom three with back-to-back home games against Stoke and Wolves last week.
There was personal pride for Thompson, who followed up his first Premier League start with his first goal, albeit it in a 2-1 defeat to Wolves.
But with just one point earned from a possible six, the 31-year-old’s own achievements offered little consolation, and he has urged the team to pull together and prove they are worthy of their top flight place.
“In games we do believe that we’re doing enough and we are creating enough to get things out of games. For whatever reason we’re not,” said the former Rangers and Cardiff striker.
“There is a general feeling that we are coping with what most teams are throwing at us. I think maybe we need to take our chances better and cut out the mistakes totally.
“You’re going to get punished in this league for the slightest lack of concentration because the standard’s so good.
“But what’s frustrating is when you’re on the pitch you do feel as though you’re holding your own against them and we’re not coming away with the points.
“I don’t know whether that’s because for a lot of us it’s our first season in the Premier League and it’s a bit of naivety.
“We’re trying to learn as quickly as we can and we have done all season, but we’re running out of games and we’re going to have to start picking points up.”
But Thompson admitted the players were finding it tough to keep trying to bounce back from disappointments on a regular basis, particularly after the majority of the current squad celebrated 32 wins from 61 games in all competitions of their play-off winning season last year.
“It’s difficult. It’s not something a lot of us are used to,” said Thompson of the players’ reaction to another loss, this time at the hands of Wolves.
“We’d maybe get a defeat here and there, but to constantly get defeats ... you’re trying to be super-positive and lift the spirits of everybody.
“It is difficult. We work very hard on the training ground and we’ve got a great squad.
“If you don’t believe you’re as well chucking the towel in now.
“You’ve got to have something to hold onto.
“But by no means is it over at all.
“(Saturday) was a big match, but it doesn’t mean that we’re down because we lost.”There are eight games left and I think a lot of those games are winnable.”
Thompson, the star of Burnley’s last two games, even believes that the winless tide can turn away from home this weekend.
“Why can’t we go to Wigan and win and get the monkey off our back for this away run as well?” he said.
“I don’t see any reason why we can’t go there and win.
“After that we’ve got the derby at home, which is winnable.
“Six points, that could be us out of it.You just don’t know.
“We’ve got to keep going. As hard as it is we’ve got to keep picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves down.
"That’s when it takes a bit of character.”
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