Marvin Bartley wants an immediate response to Portsmouth defeat

MARAUDING midfielder Marvin Bartley has signalled the importance of an immediate response from the Clarets following defeat to Portsmouth.

A late David Norris strike arrested Burnley’s three-game winning streak but Bartley is still startlingly aware of what preceeded that prosperous run.

Consecutive defeats to Leicester City, Bristol City, Leeds United and Birmingham City had seen the Clarets tumble down the Championship table and, trailing by two goals against Hull City, faced sinking in to the relegation places.

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Now Bartley wants the Clarets to stop the rot at the first attempt to spare another pointless trail. “It’s important that we don’t let it go on as we did with four defeats on the bounce,” he said. “It’s important we go to Brighton and stop it straight away.

“It’s an awful feeling losing four on the bounce.

“We learnt that you can come out of it but we don’t want to go back to that.

“We’ve lost one now and we’ve got to stop it straight away.

“Hopefully we can do that at Brighton.

“If we can go on another positive run over Christmas and come out of that period okay you’re looking up again.”

The prodigious turnaround at the KC Stadium coupled with the comprehensive victory over Ipswich Town and the gargantuan triumph against West Ham United had seen confidence soar in the Turf Moor ranks, but Bartley shot down any suggestions of complacency heading in to the game with Pompey.

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“We won’t allow ourselves to get complacent,” said Bartley. “It’s not like we’re sitting top of the league or won 10 games in a row. That was never an issue.

“Confidence was obviously high, especially with the teams we’ve beaten and coming back from a goal down at West Ham as well.

“We’ve got to look at the game and why it didn’t work for us and what we haven’t done right because you’re only as good as your last game.

“It was a bad result. The boys worked so hard. We didn’t play the best of football but I thought 0-0 would have been a fair result.

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Portsmouth came and sat behind the ball. A lot of teams are going to do that now, especially with the run we’ve just been on.”

Burnley have now conceded seven goals in the last 10 minutes of games this season, surrendering six points. That’s one bad habit that Bartley is determined to extinguish, starting at the AMEX Stadium against Brighton on Saturday.

“It’s important not to concede because at the end of the day you can take a point out of it and go again, especially with a clean sheet,” he said. “It was so disappointing to concede in the 91st minute and the boys are down.

“I felt we were focused, and nine times out of 10 that shot goes wide but unfortunately this time he found the bottom corner.”

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Bartley added: “It seems to happen all the time to us, which is even harder to take, but it’s a long season so hopefully we’ll get the results and stop conceding late goals.

“The boys were confident but unfortunately we couldn’t get the result.

“We have to put it right and go down to Brighton and get a positive result.

“We’ve got to bounce back in training (today).”