And the million-pound striker – Burnley's best performer at Hillsborough – insists the Clarets will show that the 4-1 setback was just a one-off.

The 21-year-old, yesterday named in the Northern Ireland squad, along with Michael Duff, for the forthcoming friendly against Scotland at Hampden Park on August 20th, is looking for the right response tonight at Bury in the Carling Cup first round.

After getting off the mark on Saturday – his fourth in three games at Wednesday – he is gunning for goals again, but, more importantly, for the team to bounce back in style: "A goal's great for me, but you can't take away the result and that's disappointing.

"It's not the way we wanted to start, but we can only go on from that and take it as a bad day, get on with it, and work hard to go and show the fans that it was a blip and it's gone.

"Tonight is an opportunity to score goals, an opportunity to get a win.
"A win's always good because it breeds confidence, and that's what we need at the moment, we need to get a win under our belt.

"People are going to argue that we've got talent in the team; we've got some great players, we just need to string it all together now and get going.

"Hopefully we can put the weekend to bed and start afresh tonight and kick-on.

"The players know it's not acceptable to play like that for the manager, for the fans – we can't let that happen again, and I can safely say I don't think we will.

"I wouldn't read too much into it, it was just a bad day at the office and we're going to have to work 100% to prove to the fans and the manager that it was a bad day, and we can go on and do very well in this league."

Paterson was honest enough to hold his hand up and apologise for his role in Wednesday's opening strike, just 30 seconds into the game, and big enough to put that to the back of his mind and put in a selfless shift as a lone forward: "I lost the ball in the corner for the first one, and it went up the other end and they scored.

"From then on we've had a bad day, but it was an honest mistake and it's one that won't happen again.

"The effort was there, we worked away, but when you go 2-0 down after four minutes, it's such a hard task to get back into the game.
"It's satisfying to score a goal, but I'd rather not have scored and won the game, which anyone would.

"I always work hard and try to score goals – I may not always do it, but I think fans and people appreciate that 100% is all you can give, and if you do that you can go home a happy man and do no more.

"Personally, I was happy. I worked hard as I always try to do, and I nicked one. I wouldn't say I was very good. I was pleased with my performance, but there's more to come. It was the first game of the season and I just tried to dig away and tried to salvage something from the game, but unfortunately I didn't and we didn't.

"I'm happy that I'm here, even though we've just lost 4-1 on the first day of the season, I'm still delighted to be here and I'm ready to go on and do very well in the league."

Burnley went into the game with Diego Penny and Remco van der Schaaf making Championship, never mind Burnley debuts, and Paterson admits it takes time to adapt to the pace of England's second tier: "It's very difficult. I came through at Stoke, and as a young lad I played in the Championship, so I kind of got to grips with it very early and it's stood me in good stead.

"These lads have been in different countries playing at different levels, different speeds, and they've got to come in and adapt to a speed that I think is one of the quickest that you'll find, in the Championship – people biting at your ankles and no space or time on the ball.

"The first game's gone now, I think they've understood and I think we can go on. There's no excuses now, we need to produce for the fans and the manager.

"The manager loves his football and obviously he's very passionate, but if you go away on the first game of the season and lose 4-1 you feel the wrath of any manager.

"I think it was deserved and the lads have taken it on board. We were all in early on Monday and we're dying to prove to the fans that it was a one-off and we can start tonight in the cup by getting a bit of faith back.

"For the club it's great to have a cup run but for the players as well, the confidence of winning games can only be a good thing."