Dan Black’s verdict as comeback wins and last-minute goals become habitual for Burnley

One moment we're talking about Burnley sacrificing 12 points from winning positions.

The next we're conversing over the Clarets collecting nine points from losing positions in their last four fixtures.

It all started against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light, when the visitors trailed by a couple of goals at the interval.

Their familiarity of overturning deficits gathered momentum in theatrical style at home to Reading.

And the pattern continued in a breath-taking conclusion against Rotherham United at Turf Moor on Wednesday night.

"The Championship is such an amazing league," said Vincent Kompany, after his side secured a fourth win on the bounce to move five points clear at the top of the table.

"It's such a good product, not just for the Championship itself and the players, teams, coaches and fans, but for English football.

"There is no second tier that's stronger than this second tier. We've just got to keep the tempo in games."

Injury-time winners at Turf Moor are like London buses; you are left waiting for ages to see one and then two come along at once.

Anass Zaroury converted in the fourth minute of time added on to hand the Clarets three points at home to the Royals.

Incredibly, it was the 100th minute when Halil Dervisoglu opened his account for the club to make it 3-2 against the Millers.

His instinctive finish arrived almost six years to the day since Ashley Barnes — a second half substitute when replacing Jay Rodriguez — put his side ahead against Crystal Palace in the Premier League.

Kompany, however, doesn't particularly want this trend to continue. "That's why we love the game," he said. "The next time there is 10 minutes on the clock and we're 1-0 down, the fans and the players will believe again. I'd be more worried if it was a lucky comeback.

"But I know how it goes and you can't keep doing it. This way round is much more difficult, but it has never been undeserved. We conceded too easily and we didn't score the chances that we had. I think the way forward is to focus even more, to stay away from errors and to make sure we're clinical when we have our chances."

Jeremy Simpson's failure to award Reading a penalty just days ago filled Paul Ince with indignation as the Clarets went on to overturn son Tom's opener with the last kick of the game.

Just 24 hours after the ex-Manchester United ace continued to stew over that decision following his side's goal-less stalemate with Luton Town at Kenilworth Road, another manager was condemning the performance of the officials.

United boss Matt Taylor was convinced that the ball came off Manuel Benson, rather than defender Wes Harding, when the ball went out of play in the dying seconds. Referee Leigh Doughty, and his assistant, however, thought otherwise.

He said: "It is frustrating, you need various things when you come to Burnley. You need a good performance, which we had, you need a little bit of luck, which I don't think we did. You need the officials to make the right decisions and we certainly didn't get that tonight.

"The throw in which led to their third goal, you can see by my players' reaction, you can see it clearly, the fourth official saw it, the linesman is two yards away and didn't see it.

"My player has gone to pick up the ball because it is our throw-in and then he is out of position. That leads to their third goal. People will think I am moaning but they are huge, huge moments in the game."

The ex-Exeter City centre-back was also aggrieved by the amount of additional time shown at the end of the game, though it's hard to see his argument after the visitors tried every time-wasting tactic in the book.

"I thought it should have been 15," countered Kompany. "Everyone has a big part in keeping the game flowing. Nobody pays for a ticket at the weekend to watch a keeper walk 40 yards out of his box to go and get the ball and then catwalk back to his position, drop it, wave his arms, then it's two minutes and 45 seconds gone.

"You've finished your hot dog and you wonder why there's not been a kick of the ball. As long as we keep the game active, it's what English football is about, not three minutes per set-piece. You can go to the NFL to watch that. I think it's worth saying because I think it is good for the game."

You reap what you sow. The away side learned that the hard way after losing Cohen Bramall to a second bookable offence. Yet more brilliance from Benson made it 2-2 with an electrifying run and finish in the 91st minute, cutting inside past summer transfer target Ben Wiles before beating Johansson beautifully.

The second half substitution was then alert to Connor Roberts' quick throw, pulling the ball back for Brownhill, who drew the save from United's Swedish stopper before Burnley's Turkish delight Dervisoglu followed up.

It was testament to the patience and perseverance of the home side, who had taken just one of their 17 shots on goal beforehand. Jay Rodriguez scored it, with the simplest of his nine goals so far this season, turning the ball home on the line after Nathan Tella had lifted Johann Berg Gudmundsson's precise delivery over Johansson.

But they should have been out of sight. Rodriguez's header from a Brownhill corner was partially blocked before being hacked off the line by Lee Peltier, and Johansson kept out Gudmundsson's first-time finish after man of the match Ian Maatsen's cross had dropped beyond Harding.

Oliver Rathbone also cleared off the line from Tella when Taylor Harwood-Bellis had helped on another set-piece and the Southampton forward then skewed an effort wide when well-placed from Zaroury's pass.

Rodriguez, with the final touch of the half, then flicked a header just wide of the upright from a delightful Zaroury delivery.

Icelander Gudmundsson got it all wrong early in the second half when failing to direct a free header goalwards after Zaroury's 'chop', one that Glen Little would be proud of, paved the way for the cross on the outside of Brook Norton-Cuffy.

An effort from the left boot of Benson was deflected wide, a Roberts header was somehow kept out by Johansson, who was on the deck, and Maatsen's laser-like effort migrated narrowly wide of the post.

Even through all those near misses, the hosts refused to force the issue, instead sticking to what they do best. "If you have 10 games with 10 minutes left to play, and every game you're just lumping it, you'll lose nine of those 10 games," Kompany declared.

"But if you stay at it in those 10 minutes you'll have many more games where you actually score the goal because players are sharper, things are going quicker, so you can't go against what you've done. That's a good lesson for us."

There's still work to be done, though, given the 'soft' nature of the goals conceded. Captain Wiles was left completely unmarked when powering a header past Arijanet Muric from a Norton-Cuffy cross in the third minute while Chiedozie Ogbene restored his side's lead after the hour when gifted possession by Vitinho.

They were shipped in full view of Sheffield United boss Paul Heckingbotham, who had happily divulged his methods of researching the opposition recently.

The 45-year-old former Wednesday defender shared his tactics with The Star, ahead of the Blades' trip to The Hawthorns to face West Brom.

The opposition had just sworn in Carlos Corberon as the club's new head coach, replacing Steve Bruce, meaning there was little information available as to how the Spaniard would set his side up.

But Heckingbotham, who won the League One play-offs with the Owls in 2005, had a 'lightbulb' moment, challenging a member of his backroom staff to scroll through the Baggies' social media platforms with a fine tooth comb.

A detailed check on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram did the trick, with United able to pick out nuggets of intelligence from training clips on their official channels to help their cause, as they went on to win the game 2-0.

“You have to look at it (social media) because there’s so much stuff that gets put on there and a lot of it is more instructive than people sometimes realise," he said.

"We put a lot of time into it. There might be something seemingly insignificant which goes out, something visual or something that’s said, and it can tell you a lot if you know what you’re looking for.”

He might not have to go to such extreme measures to do his due diligence ahead of his side's meeting with Burnley at the weekend, however, given that he'd researched the Championship leaders first hand.

The Manager of the Month recipient for both August and September was stationed in The Bob Lord Stand alongside second in command Stuart McCall, the ex-Rangers midfielder who ended his playing career in the Steel City.

They will now believe that they can expose the Clarets' defensive fragilities on their own patch, having witnessed the goals their next opponents shipped against the Blades' fellow Yorkshiremen.