Burnley captain Ben Mee in confident mood as Clarets look for first win

Ben Mee celebrates his goal at Crystal Palace in June

The Clarets have only two points from their opening seven league games, ahead of Monday night's home clash with Crystal Palace.

Palace themselves lost their first seven games three years ago, only to finish 11th with 44 points.

And Burnley are no strangers to testing runs in the top flight themselves, going 11 games without a win that same season, as they finished seventh, and two years ago they were 18th at the halfway stage with 12 points, but picked up 28 in the next 16 games to finish 15th.

Mee points to the spirit among the squad, and a willingness to work hard, as positives as the Clarets look to build on a point at Brighton last time out: “We’re still confident and there’s a good feeling around the place.

“We’ve played some top teams and we know we need to improve.

“We’ve had to work on some things, but we have a lot of experience in the squad and we’ve been in this situation before.

“We’ve been written off before and come back a number of times, so there’s no panic. Everyone is calm and we trust in ourselves to produce when we need to.

“At the minute we’re still a bit of a work in progress. Against Spurs we put in a positive display and we were unfortunate not to get something from that game.

“Being away from home in the last game and getting a point also shows progress, so we know where we need to improve.

“We need to create more and develop our play a bit more, but we’ll work hard to bounce back. We trust in ourselves to bounce back and we have a good mentality, which will serve us well.”

Mee made his first apperarance of the season at the Amex Stadium in the goalless draw, having picked up a thigh problem after scoring the winner at Palace at the end of June.

And he feels a first win could be the catalyst: “We need to get going as soon as possible and we know that once we start winning games, the confidence comes flooding back and I do believe that the harder you work, the more things will go for you.

“We’re very confident. As I said, we’ve plenty of experience and we’ve got a lot of players who have come from lower down and have had to work hard and fight for all they have achieved.

“Within that dressing room, there is a lot of fight and heart too, so we know that with good players and a strong mentality, we can be confident of going out there and putting in good performances.

“Things will improve the more confident we get as a group, so there’s plenty to look forward to.”