All good runs must come to an end, says Burnley midfielder Jack Cork following Newcastle United loss

Jack Cork accepted that every run has to come to an end at some point, but the Clarets midfielder was hugely disappointed with how their record-breaking unbeaten spell in the Premier League culminated.
Tottenham Hotspur's Moussa Sissoko shields the ball from Burnley's Jack CorkTottenham Hotspur's Moussa Sissoko shields the ball from Burnley's Jack Cork
Tottenham Hotspur's Moussa Sissoko shields the ball from Burnley's Jack Cork

Burnley were going for a ninth game without loss in the top flight at St James's Park midweek, a stretch that would have been the club's best at this level in a single season since 1962.

But they came up against a Newcastle United side who, on the night, were far superior as goals from Fabian Schar and 21-year-old Sean Longstaff settled the game.

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It was the first time that the Magpies have done the league double over Burnley since the 1954/55 campaign.

"It's disappointing that we didn't play as well as we have been lately," said Cork. "I think everyone could see that, we know that, and it looked like we ran out of ideas.

"We tried to do the same things as we did against Tottenham but they played a completely different way and it wasn't our night.They were up for it from the start and a great goal made it difficult for us to come back.

"It was another good chance for us to get points against a team in and around us. We had a great run, eight games unbeaten, but it was always going to come to an end at some stage, it was just disappointing in the way that it has."

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Rafa Benitez's men excelled in a 5-4-1 formation, with a central back three of Schar, Jamaal Lascelles and Florian Lejeune dominating Burnley's front two while the wide players, including £21m capture Miguel Almiron, were troublesome throughout.

"They dropped quite deep and we found the balls up to the front two quite hard to play," Cork said.

"We ran out of ideas, we weren't as good on the ball as we have been, we were sloppy with our passing and we weren't as on it as Newcastle were. I think they deserved the win in the end.

"We had some good chances; Tarky had a good one and we had a couple towards the end but you get a feel for games and they were more in control of it than we were.

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"If Tarks scores and we go in at 2-1 at half-time anything can happen. That might give us that extra bit of a push coming out in the second half. We've just got to look forward to a home game against Palace."

Only Manchester's superpowers, United and City, could better the Clarets' 18-point return during the eight-game period that had preceded defeat in the north east.

That has given the Clarets a favourable cushion over the bottom three with just 10 games remaining and now the Clarets will look to build on that when the Eagles land at Turf Moor at the weekend.

Cork said: "We knew that we needed to put things right at the start of the year after that Everton game and we did that.

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"We've made ourselves hard to beat, we set up well and were well organised so we need to get back to that at the weekend.

"They [Palace] have got a lot of attacking flair, a lot of good attacking players, we found that out when we played them at their place.

"We'll be a completely different team on Saturday, especially at home. With how the crowd has been recently it's been a good place for us to play at and hopefully that can get us going again.

"It's easier said than done but we would love to [embark on another unbeaten run]. We've got some good games coming up, games where we can look to get some points in.

"It would have been better if we could have pulled away a little bit more but results have gone our way. We need to get a couple more wins and see how we are from there."