Burnley defender Ben Mee calls for calm as battle for Premier League survival takes another turn

The former Manchester City centre back, who is only one of two outfield players in the top flight to have played every minute this term, says the squad won’t be entering panic stations, despite things tightening up at the bottom end of the table.

The Clarets dropped to 17th place in the division and are now only two points better off than Cardiff City following victories for the Bluebirds, Southampton and Brighton this weekend while Newcastle United and AFC Bournemouth also picked up three points.

“There’s no panic,” said the 29-year-old. “It was always going to be a tough game [against Liverpool]. We came here with the confidence and belief that we could get something but it was always going to be tough. We’ll look to bounce back.

“There were some big results but that is going to happen. It’s bound to happen, teams down there will win games but we need to keep our head above it and remain confident.

“We’ll be able to focus on ourselves without any problems. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.”

Sean Dyche’s side were unable to build on Ashley Westwood’s early opener on Merseyside as Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane punished a number of defensive errors.

The Brazilian striker equalised from close range in the 19th minute while his Senegalese team-mate capitalised on another mistake just before the half-hour.

The pair were both on the scoresheet again in the second half, netting either side of substitute Johann Berg Gudmundsson’s late strike.

“We weren’t able to build on it unfortunately,” said Mee. “There were a few sloppy goals that we conceded from our perspective.

“You can’t make mistakes like that here because they’ve got good quality players who can punish you. It was a bit sloppy on our behalf and they were goals we feel we could have done a lot better with.

“We started off well but you can’t make mistakes like that at a place like this because you get punished.

“It’s disappointing that we couldn’t perform but we’ve played well, held our own for a lot of the game but little mistakes have cost us.

“We don’t make too many mistakes but we made a couple today that we could have done without. It was disappointing to concede four.”