Clarets boss: ‘Keep the faith’

Sunday’s 4-0 defeat at West Brom saw the Clarets drop to the bottom of the Premier League table, without a victory in seven games in all competitions so far this term.

They have also gone 526 minutes without a league goal - 616 in total - having not scored since the 14th minute of their opening game against Chelsea.

Dyche is confident his players will get the rewards for their efforts, with a trip to Leicester City next up on Saturday.

Taking about the lack of goals, he said: “It’s not a concern, it’s a reality, we have to effect it, we work with the players in training, we work on the mentality of it as well.

“We need one to go in of course, one at the end gets blocked, and Ben Foster’s made a couple of saves, and that would be a start, to nick a goal back, but we’ve got to keep working, it’s relentless, the game’s keep coming.

“Players get that weird feeling, ‘when are we going to score?’, ‘who is going to score?’, but one of our mantras is be the man who makes a difference, and every player has to play with that. We didn’t here.”

Dyche was without Danny Ings, Sam Vokes, Matt Taylor, David Jones and Dean Marney at The Hawthorns, but was not hiding behind a growing injury list: “There has to be balance to what we’re trying to achieve in this division. The biggest learning curve is you have to be on your performance levels every week.

“We’re a team learning about this division and you have to be at it every week. If three or four are not quite on top of their game, you’re going to get hurt. You can’t carry players at this level.”

Burnley had only conceded four goals in five Premier League outings before Sunday - the second-best record in the division - and after shipping four against the Baggies, he mused: “Now and again it happens, we’ve gone up a level, on a low day in the Championship you can get away with it and hang on in there, but you can’t at this level. Tom (Heaton) hasn’t had save after save to make and had to pick the ball out of the net four times.”