On the back of a convincing Carling Cup victory over Oldham on Tuesday, assistant boss Sandy Stewart is looking to build on two successive clean sheets and register Burnley's first three-point haul of the season.

With the first round of European World Cup qualifying games kicking-off next Saturday, it will be a fortnight before the Clarets are next in action, at Nottingham Forest.

And Stewart hopes to go into the break in a healthier mid-table position: "We're looking forward to it, especially after Tuesday night, getting a very good win against a good team and another clean sheet, so everything's positive going into the Plymouth game.

"We now need points on the board to go with the two recent performances – I don't think there's any doubt about that, especially after what's gone before.

"Tomorrow gives us an opportunity, and with the international break coming up, we want to make sure we get three points on the board.

"You want the points on the board as early as you possibly can, and four points looks a lot better than one, but we're not even contemplating that just now."

Burnley have changed their system in the last two games, going from 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3, which, depending on your perspective can also be a 4-1-4-1 or 4-5-1, and that has brought two clean sheets, having shipped seven goals in the first two league games, and Stewart is pleased with a more miserly approach: "We've had three clean sheets in the first five games of the season, which would be good reading for anybody, but obviously the four goals that we shipped at Sheffield Wednesday and the three here against Ipswich – although a lot of them were unfortunate – it wasn't acceptable and we couldn't let it go on.

"So we changed the approach at the back. We changed the system, and I think it definitely helped as far as the way we were going.

"We've got two clean sheets, but the most important thing the other night was we scored three goals to go with it.

"We worked on a change of system at training – the players are probably bored to death with it now, but it was something we felt we had to work on a lot.

"It needed an improvement, and I think we've seen that. But it's a lot of hard hours on the training ground that's made that happen.

"We've been working on the back four and the team shape as a whole – not that we hadn't been doing, but obviously putting a lot more emphasis on it to make sure the mistakes that happened against Ipswich and Sheffield Wednesday weren't going to happen again."

What the new formation does is allow Chris McCann and Kevin McDonald to get forward, and Stewart was delighted with McCann's headed opener against Oldham: "As far as we were concerned it was a fantastic goal from our point of view.

"I don't think there's any doubt there's more goals of that calibre to come. As with everything else, results give you confidence and people all of a sudden start making the runs that maybe they didn't make in the previous games.

"But there's no doubt there's more to come.

"If we can break quickly and deliver balls into the box, it's up to us to make sure we get people in there. You could be 5ft 7ins or 6ft 2ins, if the delivery is right, and the run's right, it doesn't matter what height you are."

McCann is the only player other than Martin Paterson to score for the Clarets so far this season, after 14 different goalscorers in pre-season, but Stewart hailed Paterson's contribution: "It was great the goals were shared about in pre-season, but Martin has five in five, which is a tremendous record for anybody, never mind sharing them about.

"It is good to get more names on the scoresheet though, and Chris added to that, a midfield player breaking into the box, which is a fantastic thing to have.

"But we feel Martin can score the goals we wouldn't have last year, the ones that are breaking off the goalkeeper two yards out.

"Those goals are the bread and butter. The fantastic play for the first goal against Oldham, you won't score those every week, so you need sometimes to get the scrappy goals, someone to put the ball in from two or three yards.

"His hard work and energy makes that happen for him.

"He's probably a defender's nightmare, because he's always there, you can't take your eye off him for a minute.

"Long may it continue."

The Carling Cup third round draw will take place on Sky's Soccer Saturday show at 12-15 p.m.