Burnley hit new low as weak mentality rears ugly head at Cardiff

This was a shambolic way to sign off a shambolic first third of the season.

After 15 games, Burnley - the bookies’ third favourite for promotion before the season got underway - have won just one game.

It leaves them rooted inside the Championship’s relegation zone and FIVE points adrift of safety.

On the one occasion they did win, the Clarets needed an unassailable four-goal lead to ensure the three points at Watford. Clearly, anything less and they might have wilted, just as they did at Cardiff on Saturday.

Let’s not mince words here, this is a mentally weak squad that simply doesn’t know how to win games of football. It’s as simple as that.

To give up a 4-1 lead to lose 5-4, conceding four times in the space of 29 minutes, is simply inexcusable. A complete car crash.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was a one-off, this is football after all and these things can happen. That’s why we all love and hate the game in equal measure. It would be boring otherwise.

But to lose 23 points from winning positions, at this relatively early stage of the season - having taken the lead in 10 of their 15 league games - is just off-the-chart level of bonkers.

Unrealistic I know, but add those 23 points to the measly 10 they’ve collected so far and Burnley sit top of the league. Instead they’re facing a long, hard scrap to avoid a double relegation, a la Leicester City and Luton Town.

It’s happened before and it could well happen again.

The last time Burnley were at this level, they famously conceded just 16 goals in 46 games as they stormed back to the Premier League under Scott Parker.

The Clarets, who can forget any delusions of another instant return to the top flight, have shipped an alarming 31 goals already - the most of any Championship side.

They’ve conceded 10 alone in their last three away games, with nine of those coming against newly-promoted sides.

That’s meant as no slight to Cardiff, by the way. Because they’re simply a better side than Burnley.

Even at 4-1 down, Cardiff had been superior. They were the better drilled, more organised, better patterns of play etc. It was just their brave, yet equally suicidal, high line that proved to be their downfall.

But that’s how they play. As equally risky as their approach is, especially with slow centre backs, it’s also how they create so many chances - producing 25 shots on the Burnley goal and finishing the game with an Expected Goals (xG) of 4.65.

They have an identity, something Burnley are sorely lacking - both on and off the pitch.

The visitors, to their credit, were clinical and took full advantage of the space offered to them in behind Cardiff’s vulnerable backline.

They survived a ropey first 10 or 15 minutes and took their lead with their first shot on target, when the improving Andreas Hountondji cleverly slotted home.

One soon became two with their second shot on target, as Marcus Edwards drilled home after some super play by Jaydon Banel down the left on his first start.

Attacking wise, as we’ve seen for much of the season, Burnley don’t have a problem creating chances or scoring goals. The quality is there.

But defensively, and structurally, it’s all a bit of a clown show. That was on show for the goal Cardiff pulled back just before the break, when Gregoire Coudert failed to take command of his six-yard box from a corner and Kyle Walker bizarrely headed his attempted clearance straight to Rubin Colwill, whose close-range effort rebounded in off teammate Ollie Tanner.

You sensed that goal would change the whole complexion of the second half, and in many ways it did, but perhaps not in the way we all expected.

Burnley survived an early scare straight after the restart, as Hjalmar Ekdal cleared off the line, before scoring two relatively quickfire goals to give them an unassailable lead - or so we thought.

But this is Burnley, anything is possible. And not in a good way.

The collapse was painful as it was predictable. While there were question marks over the penalty the Bluebirds were given, Connor Roberts the man adjudged to have shoved Yousef Salech as he readied himself to head home, you can’t point the finger at the referee. Not on this occasion.

You can’t score four goals away from home and lead 4-1 and come away empty-handed. That’s just a cardinal sin.

While the weak mentality of a squad that has won two league games in a year is there for all to see, where exactly was the game management? There wasn’t even an attempt to stem the flow.

While there was seemingly no discernible plan to get their foot on the ball and take the sting out of things, which surely would have been the plan when Josh Cullen was introduced, it was also alarming with the apparent willingness of Burnley’s players to stand aside and let Cardiff through. Both metaphorically and literally, I may add.

Why didn’t they try and bide time? Show some housery? Slow the game down, maybe commit the odd foul or two. The double change of Connor Roberts and Oliver Sonne, meanwhile, only served the send the wrong message.

But no, the only bit of fight we saw was deep into stoppage-time when Alex Robertson had already thundered his long-range thunderbolt of a winner into the top corner, when the players - and some subs too - completely lost their heads and got themselves embroiled in a mass brawl. FA charge and club fine incoming.

You’d like to things couldn’t get much worse, but with THAT game up next after the international break, it would be foolish to tempt fate.