Well, what a thoroughly disappointing Christmas that was as a Clarets fan.

Three festive fixtures, zero points on the board and, a couple of ‘spirited’ second halves aside, it was a hat-trick of very poor performances.

I’m not the kind of person to get too hysterical when results aren’t going our way but I have to say that the lack of points, and shots on target, is beginning to get even me a tad worried.

We’ve gone back to not doing the basics right and that is a problem that needs addressing as soon as possible.

The first half performance against Aston Villa on New Year’s Day was as poor as I’ve seen us for a long time and while the second half display was better, it’s really papering over the cracks to suggest it was anything other than a slight improvement.

I don’t say it often but I thought Sean Dyche got his starting line-up wrong.

Jay Rodriguez and Johann Berg Gudmundsson gave us much more impetus when coming on against Manchester United last weekend and I was amazed to see that neither of them started against Villa.

It almost made it more galling that we again looked better once they entered the fray at half-time a couple of days ago.

Ashley Barnes is clearly struggling with his groin so why not give Jay the start?

Most people are struggling to see where the points are going to come from in the next four games as we take on Chelsea and Manchester United away and Leicester City and Arsenal at home.

Maybe the transfer window will bring us some much-needed cheer eh?

Possibly not if Dyche’s post-Villa comments about incomings being ‘unlikely’ are anything to go by.

I said it a few weeks ago but I really do not understand what our transfer supremo Mike Rigg is doing if we’re already waving the white flag with the transfer window just a couple of days old.

He was brought in to great fanfare in November 2018 but since then we’ve not seen any of the fruits of his labour.

The whole point of his appointment was to add ‘layers and depth’ to the recruitment but he’s done nothing of the sort so far as far as I can see.

These last few matches have really exposed our weaknesses and I’d go as far to say that not strengthening in the areas which we so desperately need fresh ideas is nothing short of negligence.