Arfield has appetite for top flight return

The 26-year-old has appeared 40 times across all competitions this term, scoring twice, as the Clarets lost their top flight status.

The Scot, who netted the club’s first goal of the campaign against Chelsea at Turf Moor, said: “I’ve absolutely loved it. I’ve loved every minute of it.

“Once you get a taste of this level of football you just want to be here every single week.

“It’s disappointing when things like this happen but we need to come back stronger and strive for success again. That’s what we’ll try to do next season.

“We can take great credit for what we’ve achieved even though we’ve gone down.

“We’ve looked at everybody buzzing off us in terms of how we’ve played the game and that’s exactly what we want to do next season to get back here.

“I’ve played against some of the best players in the world. There’s been international players, Champions League winners, World Cup winners and that’s what you want to keep playing against.”

Sean Dyche’s side registered a 10th clean sheet of the term at the weekend as Danny Ings’s sixth minute strike earned victory over Aston Villa on the final day of the season.

“That’s what we were trying to do for the fans,” said Arfield. “Overall it’s hard when you haven’t had success, but we’ve had a lot of admirers from the way we’ve played.

“We’ve taken it to the opposition more often than not. It’s been a successful year even though relegation wasn’t something we wanted.”

The Clarets culminated the campaign on 33 points, five adrift of Tim Sherwood’s Villains who finished 17th in the table.

However, having recorded the fewest amount of goals scored in the division with 28 in 38 outings, Arfield went on: “You look at the clean sheets but it’s all about putting the ball in the back of the net.

“We went for so many games when we didn’t do that. We came unstuck on certain occasions.

“Everything in the Premier League is magnified so everybody takes notice of how you’re playing.

“We need to keep working at what we’re good at and hopefully it can be good enough to get us back here. We want to get back here as soon as possible.”