THE snow was falling at Turf Moor and a shivering Roberto Martinez must have thought he was witnessing Burnley move above Everton in the Premier League table.

But for the second time in a month, Alan Pardew subtly turned the tide.

After 16 minutes on Saturday, Danny Ings was celebrating putting Burnley 2-0 up and Sean Dyche’s men were on course to climb to 12th in the table.

Above Crystal Palace, above Sunderland, above West Bromwich Albion, above Aston Villa - even above Everton, £28m Romelu Lukaku et al.

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Not in action until tonight against West Brom, Toffees boss Martinez was in the Bob Lord Stand for the afternoon to gather information on Palace ahead of an upcoming fixture.

Expected to challenge for the Champions League this season, dropping below Burnley cannot have been something he had ever contemplated.

That it did not happen on Saturday was down to what happened next.

Wilfried Zaha had been toiling away on the left flank, struggling once more to show why Manchester United signed him in a £15m deal only two years ago. Pardew saw that something had to be done, and Zaha was quickly switched to the right.

For the next 25 minutes, he ran the game - providing the cross for Dwight Gayle to pull a goal back, then threatening to create an equaliser. The momentum had shifted, and Burnley found the shift irreversible.

“We’re going to win 3-2,” Palace fans sung almost in jest after Gayle had halved the deficit.

As it turned out, they were right. By the end, the visitors had scored twice more and three points had been lost.

Two points were lost in December too, when the Clarets led 1-0 at home to Newcastle thanks to a George Boyd goal.

Pardew, then Magpies boss, responded by replacing Ayoze Perez with Remy Cabella at half-time. Cabella was highly influential in the second half, setting up Papiss Cisse’s equaliser as Newcastle claimed a draw.

“Super Alan Pardew,” was probably not a chant you would have heard Newcastle fans singing too often, but that was the chant coming from the Palace supporters in the Cricket Field End on Saturday.

The blizzard conditions meant this was not a day for cricket, or arty television cutaways to the adjacent field that are a staple of television coverage during the summer months.

Burnley had trailed 2-0 at home to Palace and recovered to win 4-2 at a crucial stage of their 2008/09 promotion campaign.

If it proved a key moment then, it must be hoped that this turnaround does not prove vital for the wrong reasons.

Full-time was greeted by a few boos, then a smattering of applause. Burnley fans growing used to happiness and progress did not seem quite sure how to react.

Dyche was asked afterwards if he regarded the match as a one-off.

“It’s a two-off,” he admitted, asserting that this was the Clarets’ second poor performance of the season - the 4-0 loss at West Brom being the first.

Two out of 22 ain’t bad, as Meat Loaf never said, but it was little comfort to fans as they filtered back on to the snow-filled streets and headed for their cars.

They would have cared little of the treacherous conditions had their side finished the day in a remarkable 12th position.

Now it seemed like an arduous journey home.