BURNLEY are only 35 minutes of football away from potentially setting an unwanted club record at Leicester City on Saturday.

Sunday’s 4-0 defeat at West Bromwich Albion took the Clarets’ run without a goal to 616 minutes in all competitions since Scott Arfield fired them ahead after 14 minutes of their opening game of the season against Chelsea.

Burnley have failed to score in six complete matches since that Chelsea game, taking their tally without a goal to more than 10 hours of football.

They are now closing in on a club record for the longest spell without a goal.

That currently stands at 651 minutes, set in the early stages of the 1970/71 season.

Then Burnley were tipped to be the ‘Team of the Seventies’ by boss Jimmy Adamson, but they endured a horror start to a First Division campaign that ended with relegation.

Dave Thomas scored in each of the opening two games of the season, but after his eighth-minute strike at Everton the goals dried up for the Clarets.

The next six matches – including a League Cup fixture at Aston Villa – did not produce a single goal for Adamson’s side and the drought was only ended by an own goal in a home defeat to Arsenal.

The current Clarets side have gone 526 minutes without a league goal and that record would also be broken if they fail to score at Leicester on Saturday.

The record is held by Steve Cotterill’s 2006/07 team and stands at 596 minutes, in a campaign when Burnley finished 15th in the Championship.

That run was one of only two occasions when Burnley have gone six complete league matches without a goal – the other coming in the first six games of the 1997/98 campaign under Chris Waddle.

Burnley are however still some way short of the Premier League record for minutes without a goal.

Crystal Palace experienced the longest goal drought midway through the 1994/95 season when Alan Smith’s team went 839 minutes without scoring – including nine complete matches – on the way to relegation.

A Derby squad including current Burnley midfielder David Jones went 777 minutes without a goal in 2007/08, when they finished bottom of the table with only 20 goals and 11 points.

From the start of the season, Burnley’s run of one goal in six games does not match that of Everton in 2005/06, when they scored only once in their opening eight games despite qualifying for the Champions League only months earlier.

The record number of complete games without a goal in the top flight is held by Sunderland, who went 10 matches without scoring in 1976/77.

So far this season the Clarets have had 67 shots, including 16 in their 0-0 draw at home to Sunderland.

But only 17 of those 67 shots have been on target and their tight defence up until Sunday’s loss at West Brom means their matches have still averaged only 1.5 goals per game – the lowest in the top-flight.