Burnley 0 Liverpool 1: Dan Black's thoughts on how performances alone — amid a failure to finish — won't be enough to stave off relegation!

The Burnley boss, however, isn't naïve enough to think that good performances are the answer to his side's problems in the Premier League. They're a platform, but the Clarets need goals, and fast!

Four goals in nine games in the top flight — since putting three past Crystal Palace — is cause for concern, and they've now failed to score in almost half (10) of their 21 games this season. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that if you don't score goals you don't win games.

That worryingly infertile return explains the club's desperately fragile form; a lonely win this term coupled with a single home win in well over 12 months is a recipe for disaster. Continuing on that collision course will only end one way.

"We have to continue to believe in what we do and then add the details like I have been speaking about all season," said Dyche. "That has been my biggest bugbear. Once again we have played a very good side and created some golden chances but not taken them.

"That is the next step and it has to come quickly. Equally there has to be something to build on and I believe there is with the performance levels over the last four games."

It's hard to gauge just how productive the squad's working week has been. Performance levels — the Watford stalemate aside — have headed in an upwards integer, but a famine in the final third has seen the Clarets lose further ground in the fight for survival.

They were three points adrift of safety prior to the Hornets' visit at the start of the month, they're now seven. "As I have said all season there is nothing we can do about others, we can only keep working on ourselves," added Dyche.

The hosts could have scripted their own syllabus on ways to crack one of the meanest defences in the division, but one of the subjects, "finishing", still needs a little work.

Burnley used every trick in the book to carve open the 2020 champions, who were caught out when employing a high defensive line.

Josh Brownhill can't buy a Premier League goal, though his first half piledriver from distance brought a smart save from Alisson, who would be called upon to clean up the mess outside his penalty area on more than one occasion.

The Brazilian stopper also saved at the feet of Jay Rodriguez when Maxwel Cornet's set-piece fell fortuitously for the striker via a ricochet off Ben Mee. Even when the ex-Roma keeper was beaten, circumstances would swing in his favour.

Trent Alexander-Arnold cleared Wout Weghorst's clipped attempt off the line when the home side broke through Ashley Westwood and then the Dutchman powered the ball wide of the near post when Connor Roberts' pass split Virgil van Dijk and Joel Matip.

The goals will come for the former VfL Wolfsburg man, just as they did for Cornet when the Ivorian got the monkey off his back when scoring his first goal for the club against Leicester City at the King Power Stadium.

The details at the other end of the pitch, however, aren't quite as concerning. The Clarets have shipped fewer goals than every side in the bottom half of the table as well as West Ham United and Manchester United, in fourth and fifth place respectively.

Liverpool's starting front three at Turf Moor — Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino — as Jurgen Klopp restored his old guard — had collectively harvested 73 shots on target in the Premier League this season.

Having the luxury of Portuguese finisher Diogo Jota on the bench, who was whimsically thrown into action with 25 minutes remaining, replacing the Reds' Africa Cup of Nations champion, adds a further 24 to that total.

Yet the prolific four-pronged offering of forwards, each individual as potentially lethal as the next, and the deadliest assemblage in the division, managed one shot on target against the Clarets as they were kept at arm's length.

Mane, fresh from helping Senegal to a historic AFCON title, was responsible for that, getting on the end of Alexander-Arnold's free kick and forcing the block from Nick Pope a third of the way through the fixture.

It's typical then, and befitting of Burnley's current misfortune, that the away side's winner, five minutes before the break, came from a source outside of that free-scoring quartet.

Fabinho has transformed into somewhat of a goal-scoring midfielder of late, scoring for the third time in four games in the top flight as Liverpool once again plugged the gap on leaders Manchester City.

The Brazilian, who had only netted once before starting his scoring spree against Brentford last month, profited from some rather lax defending from the hosts as Alexander-Arnold swung in the corner.

Give sides like Liverpool an inch and they'll punish you ruthlessly. The ex-AS Monaco midfielder peeled away undetected alongside Mane, who supplied an uncontested flick on, and converted at the second time of asking.

That was the away side's fourth and final shot on target of the game, after Pope had sprawled to the foot of his post to keep out Naby Keita's low drive in the opening chapter.

And that was that. After inflicting the knockout blow, the Reds had the quality, the composure and the experience to kill the game off in the second half, keeping the ball to take the sting out of the game, as Burnley struggled to lay a glove on their high-class opposition.

It was the perfect scenario for Klopp, who would've enjoyed seeing his side taking control, and taking things down a notch, ahead of next week's Champions League trip to Italy where they'll tackle Inter Milan.

Mee almost steered an Alexander-Arnold cross into his own net while James Tarkowski's terrific intervention denied Jota what seemed a certain goal late on, but a solitary strike from Fabinho was all that was needed.