The Clarets entertain Oldham Athletic in their second round clash, looking to back up a first point in the Championship by progressing to a potentially lucrative tie.

After starting the campaign with heavy defeats against Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich, Owen Coyle's side were, in the end, frustrated not to beat nine-man Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

But the 36-year-old takes heart from the clean sheet, and thinks that can be a starting block, although he acknowledges the 2-0 win at Bury in the first round proved a false dawn: "We know we didn't perform well in the first two games, so hopefully we've turned a corner.

"We beat Bury and we thought we'd put the Sheffield Wednesday result to bed. But we followed it up with a poor defeat at home.

"Hopefully we can build on this (against Oldham) at home, and then take it into the league form against Plymouth.

"They're both going to be tough games, but they're ones that we want to win and need to win."

The Scotland international accepts the criticism that has come Burnley's way so far this season.

And despite the disappointment in failing to break down Palace, he felt the back to basics defensive display at Palace was a necessary evil: "If you get beat 4-1 away and 3-0 at home you're not going to get praise, it's a simple as that.

"We wouldn't expect it either. The criticism came from outside, but there was criticism inside from each other and the staff as well.

"After the first few games we needed to come down here and put on a real workman-like performance and be strong at the back, and to be fair it wasn't just at the back - the whole team defended really well.

"It wasn't pretty football from us probably, but after the last couple of weeks we needed just to get a foot on the ladder, and we did that."

He admitted there was a change of emphasis from Burnley's more attacking philosophy at Selhurst Park, where he reverted from right back to the midfield holding role, and he added: "We had a little bit of a change of mentality from the previous two games - we didn't go straight out to win the game from minute one, and I think that saw us well into half-time.

"That gave us confidence in the second half. Obviously the game changed when they went down to 10 and nine men, but we're happy with what we got.

"If we'd have got a couple of points on the board in the first couple of games, we'd have been really disappointed not winning that game. But it's a point and we're happy with that.

"Coming off at half-time at 0-0 and hearing the home crowd booing was music to our ears because it's been a little bit different for the last couple of weeks.

"The way the second half went we needed to score, we wanted the three points, but we'd have taken a point and a clean sheet before the game."

Neil Warnock's men made life difficult for the Clarets, but Alexander felt Chris McCann's goal, ruled out for a supposed handball, should have counted:

"It's difficult because as soon as they go down to 10 and then nine men, you know they're going to get as many bodies round the box as possible to defend, and they did that.

"But I think we had a good goal disallowed. It should have been allowed. And we had a couple of other opportunities we maybe should have scored from.

"At the end of the day we got a point, but we're probably a bit disappointed with the way it went that we didn't get three."

Martin Paterson and Michael Duff have both both named in the Northern Ireland squad for the first round of World Cup 2010 qualifying. Nigel Worthington's side kick-off their campaign in Slovakia on Saturday, September 6th, before hosting the Czech Republic on Wednesday the 10th.