AND it had been such a good week as well... Last Tuesday, the Clarets travelled to Saltergate bearing the unwanted tag of the team who had lost to nine-man Palace 72 hours earlier.

But by 10.30pm, Burnley had progressed to the next round of the Carling Cup, courtesy of Brian Jensen's heroics in the penalty shoot-out.

Then 24 hours later things got even better when Stan Ternent landed David May.

Sure, in a previous, misguided life he had played for that lot down the road until a proper club came in for him. But so what?

May had become a Claret and you won't find many better or more experienced in his position in this division. He was just what we needed.

The first hint that things might be about to go wrong came just after 5.30pm when news filtered through that we had drawn Scunthorpe away in the second round of the Carling Cup. Oh, joy unconfined -- a midweek trip to Lincolnshire, with the weather about to take a turn for the worse, no doubt.

Still, with Burnley about to kick-off, there were more important concerns. At this point I should admit that I swapped the surroundings of the Hawthorns for a Burnley town centre pub. I object to paying £20 for a seat which cost £14 two seasons ago. Judging by the sparsely populated away end, I wasn't the only Claret thinking along those lines.

At times during that first half, Burnley were a joy to watch and were well worth the lead. In fact it needed Artim Sakiri to score the goal of the season to pull Albion level. Still Burnley pushed on and the pub gave a collective groan as Tony Grant and Alan Moore missed chances to restore the lead.

The second half was more frustrating. Lee Roche failed to challenge Hulse for the Baggies' second, then a desperate assault on Glen Little in Albion's box amazingly went unnoticed by referee Clattenburg.

It was obvious that this was not going to be our day when Lee Hughes (who has achieved the unlikely feat of being simultaneously bald and ginger) scored a wonder-goal before netting again with Jensen in no man's land.

Spirits in the deflated pub were hardly lifted when Sky's embryonic table showed Burnley at the foot of the division with a whopping seven in the goals against column.

In the same way that a table published after two games is meaningless, it is also ridiculous to talk about "must win games" before August is out. But both Ternent and the players will be keen to put one over on Wigan Athletic on Saturday.

Quite aside from giving Burnley their first league win of the season, it will provide a timely injection of that most vital of qualities -- confidence.