The sweet, sweet taste of an away point

Saturday's thrilling three all draw away at Manchester City was one of those few occasions in football where a single point felt like three.

Having yet to pick up anything away from home so far this season there were few who gave us any chance if turning our fortunes around, especially when Mark Hughes' starting eleven came through with the likes of Tevez, Adebayor and Bellamy all included.

But that very same team also had Kolo Toure and Joleon Lescott at centre half with a midfield packed with largely attack minded players. Reading their line up gave me more confidence than fear as I knew that we could hurt City if they allowed us too much time on the ball and the space to create chances.

Fortunately that's exactly how the first half panned out, we passed the ball brilliantly and regularly found Chris Eagles in acres of space on the flank as he and the likes of Steven Fletcher, Wade Elliot and Tyrone Mears created wave upon wave of attacks down the right hand side. And not just that, whenever we gave the ball away we were quickly getting men behind the ball and thwarting the home sides advances.

Eighteen minutes in a ball from the Claret's right back was slapped behind for a corner by the hand of Lescott to earn us a penalty. Graham Alexander stepped up and for the second week running gave the keeper no chance and Burnley a one nil lead.

While City probed for an equaliser, things were about to get even better. Another impressive bit of play down our right hand side saw Chris Eagles perfectly slide the ball across the City goal for the oncoming Steven Fletcher to take full advantage of to double our lead. The upset was now most definitely on, little Burnley were teaching the rich kids from the City a well deserved lesson.

Sadly, although it was a much improved away performance we were about to be taught another timely lesson ourselves. The impressive Shaun Wright Phillips gave City hope just before half time as he rather fortunately pulled one back via the cutest of deflections off the boot of Stephen Jordan. With the home side buoyed it was now our job to continue with the same work rate and concentration levels in the first part of the second half that kept City at bay for the majority of the first period.

Unfortunately when the onslaught came we weren't prepared and crumbled, Kolo Toure levelled within ten minutes of the restart before Craig Bellamy gave City the lead just short of the hour mark. With the game spinning out of our control Owen Coyle made a couple of spectacular tactical changes to get ourselves back level. On came Joey Gudjonsson and Kevin McDonald in a double substitution to bolster the midfield, while David Nugent was thrown on ten minutes later to add some spark in attack.

Coyle's attempt to nullify City's threat and make the game ugly worked to perfection; patience was now to be the key as it was inevitable that we would create another chance before the end. Nugent was working hard in the channels and his dogged persistence paid off with four minutes to go when he swung in a cross from the right hand side which was perfectly headed down by Steven Fletcher for the oncoming Kevin McDonald to smash past Shay Given. For the third time in the game the travelling Claret's went wild as we secured a much deserved first away point.

After the results we've had away from home so far this term this result is a timely reminder that if given the time and space to punish teams we most certainly will.

What we saw yesterday was two teams on very different learning curves. While we are still very much a work in progress in terms of becoming a fully fledged Premier League side, Manchester City are still working out how they can make the breakthrough to rejoin English football's elite.

The young City fans chatting behind me on the way out reminded me of the gulf between the two sides financially when they decided 50 million pounds worth of new players could solve City's problems. Unfortunately, throwing money around isn't the solution to all of their woes as while City are an impressive attacking force, they are largely an imbalanced side desperately in need of a leader at centre half.

For Burnley, we still need to keep learning about the art of closing games out and at times making the game ugly at this level. Yesterday we did it but far too late to turn one point into three. But we've spent a fraction of what City have and are always going to concede goals against opponents with such quality. For us any point away from home in this league will be treated like a victory and Saturday was probably the greatest example of that we will find this season.