The Clarets had lost all five of their games on the road before they travelled to the City of Manchester Stadium.

And while it looked for a spell that all three were a distinct possibility, Kevin McDonald's late leveller felt like a winner.

Coyle said: "It's a monkey off your back. So much had been made of this away form, although I'm loathe to use the word form.

"I can accept people are critical because of the away results, but bear in mind we're coming up for two years since I took charge, when we were languishing 15th in the Championship.

"Now we're obviously in the Premier League and trying to get better.

"Albeit by Premier League standards the players aren't on not huge salaries, but we believe we've got good players.

"The one thing we do have is an unbelievable spirit and sense of cameraderie.

"If you go and take one of City's elite players it would probably cover the whole salary of my entire squad.

"That shows you what my players have put into it and it shows you how much they're learning - as we all are in this Premier League."

Coyle felt he had the players and system to hurt Mark Hughes' multi-million pound team, and Eastlands was stunned into silence when Graham Alexander and Steven Fletcher put Burnley 2-0 up.

Shaun Wright-Phillips' deflected strike just before half-time proved a turning poinnt, beforer Kolo Toure and Craig Bellamy turned things around for the hosts.

McDonald earned a richly-deserved point, and Coyle added: "It's always nice when you get what is perceived, I believe, as a bonus point, coming to one of the top clubs.

"But we believe, home and away, that we can earn points.

"There's still work to be done though, because we conceded three goals which I'm not entirely happy about.

"We believed that within our game plan if we could take care of the ball in the middle third we could get at City and try to create opportunities.

"We did that. I felt we raided, particularly down the right in the first half, very well and created numerous opportunities.

"I felt very comfortable at 2-0.

"We'd have loved to get to half-time at that, but Wright-Phillips came up with a great strike that deflected off Stephen Jordan.

"They have undoubted quality, but I still believed at half-time we'd go on to win the game.

"We're on a learning curve, and if we'd have been a team that had already been in the Premier League with a bit of Premier League I think we'd have seen that period off.

"Having gone 3-2 behind and City then firing on all cylinders we still showed tremendous resolve and belief, and I think the quality of the third goal itself hopefully summed up Burnley Football Club.

"You would look at periods in the game and think you deserved three points, and then other times you would think, 'you're 3-2 down, they've had a couple of chances and you end up at 3-3' and then Nugent nearly raided again at the end.

"But if you'd have offered me a point beforehand we'd have gladly taken it."