And he believes the Clarets thoroughly merited the three points against Preston.

A thunderbolt from Joey Gudjonsson levelled matters just after the half hour, after Barry Nicholson's opener, before Steven Caldwell and Chris Eagles settled the Lancashire dispute, and Coyle said: "I don't just think we deserved it in the end, we deserved it from start to finish.

"We dominated the game and could have scored as early as the first minute.

"Preston are always going to be dangerous on the counter attack, and so it proved.

"We had a few opportunities to get in front, and never took them, and then had the hammer blow of conceding a goal, although it was a great finish from Barry Nicholson, who I played with at Dunfermline, so I know his quality.

"At that point it would have been easy to feel sorry for ourselves, because we were so on top.

"But the lads showed that belief, hunger and desire to score goals and win the derby, and Joey's strike was something very special. He's capable of that and we encourage him to hit them on a daily basis, because when he does catch them right they are unstoppable."

The Iceland international's effort sent the sides in level at the interval, which Coyle felt was rough justice: "I felt we should probably have been in front at the break, but we weren't, so I asked the lads for the same again, which we thought would be a tall order, because we had a tough game in midweek, but anything but.

"We carried it on and scored a very good second goal. The tendency then is to sit back and protect what you have, but we were urging the lads to go and get the next one and put the game to bed.

"Preston are always going to be a threat, but I don't think Brian had a save to make in the game. There were obviously scary moments with balls coming in your box, and you have to defend for your life, but those lads at the back have shown that.

"But over the piece, we were delighted, and I think it says a lot about the football club with the quality we had on the bench.

"If someone had offered us 3-1 at the start, against a team flying at the top of the league, then we would have grabbed it. But I felt we merited it."

The win took Burnley to eighth place, two points off third after eight games without defeat, and Coyle added: "I don't think people would have envisaged us being eighth after the first two games, but that's all credit to the players, they knuckled down and taken on board what we're trying to say, and the biggest single thing is they've delivered when they've crossed that white line.

"But we have to keep asking them to do that, we've now got competition for places."

One downside was a slight blemish to a miserly goals against record, with Nicholson's strike only the third shipped in those eight games, and Coyle said: "I was disappointed to concede, and there were probably three or four errors we made in that goal. We had enough people back.

"We know we're certainly not the finished article, we've got a long, long way to go, we'll continue to work as hard as we can, and hopefully the players can get better as we go."