Still chasing down: City 3-1 Burnley

Oh my giddy aunt! We still need Birmingham to slip up (they did a bit today with a draw), and possibly Sheffield Utd (ditto), but City are still chasing down automatic promotion after a 3-1 win over Burnley in the penultimate league match at Ninian Park.

City, without Roger Johnson for the first time this season ue to his injury from the Palace game started cautiously - so cautiously they couldn't string two passes together, and Burnley looked good value for their 6th spot in the table. However City came into the game more and ended the first half the better.

After the break City continued to play the more attacking football, but it looked like a stalemate was on the cards when in the 74th minute Jay Bothroyd got on the end of a Ross McCormack flick on to blast the ball home and give City a precious lead.

They held that lead for 10 minutes looking very comfortable until the home crowd were silenced by a dreadful Darren Purse back-pass that let in Robbie Blak to slide home under Stuart Taylor. It looked like all City's hard work had been undone, but a minute later, Bothroyd returned the favour to McCormack and the diminuitive Scotsman turned to slot home his 22nd of the season. To be fair to Burnley, they were throwing the kitchen sink at it by now and a couple of iffy bits of defending could have seen them equalise again, before Mark Kennedy cooly sent McCormack on his way again from inside his own half deep into injury time. Rather than run the ball to the corner flag as we were expecting, he ran at goal, jinked in side and fired low to send the Ninian Park crowd into raptures.

A superb win that closes the gap to 4 points on Birmingham and 3 points Sheffield Utd, with a game in hand on both, and importantly just about confirms a play off spot. We have to keep winning though, but on this performance who'd bet against that?

Up the City!