'Something there': Scott Parker makes admission about Burnley's slow start to games

The Clarets have conceded inside the opening 30 minutes in four of their first six games of the campaign.

While they’ve faced the likes of Tottenham, Liverpool and Man City during that run, it’s still a cause for concern for Parker.

“It's something we're looking at,” he admitted.

“To be honest, there's definitely something there. We're speaking about that and it's something that we need to look at because we have started slow, I think that's really fair to say.

"When we're reflecting on things, we're pretty honest in our reflection and we look at things in a real brutal way at times and try and find out the solutions or the reasons behind that.

“Certainly early on, there were some slow starts, Tottenham, United...there were factors in that where I felt that I could have an understanding of why that happened, we were new to everyone etc.

"But certainly that's gone on a little bit and it's certainly something we're looking into to try and work out how that is, whether we set up a little bit different, however that may be. But I think it's fair what you said there.”

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On a positive note, Burnley are at least responded to these setbacks, coming from behind to level against United, Nottingham Forest and Man City – even if the latter did go on to record an emphatic victory.

But the Clarets need to stop giving themselves uphill mountains to climb if they're to pick up results on a regular basis.

“It's still not ideal,” Parker added. “We'd rather start quick, get our nose in front, maintain...that's the ideal and that's everything we aspire to be. We aspire to obviously tick every box and be this perfect, the perfect game.

“At this moment in time, there's always things that you need to improve on. I think that the character that we've shown in these moments have probably surprised me the most, to be quite honest with you.

"A young team going into the big league, players who have not been in and around it, and getting some knockbacks, whether they be goals against us, even at the weekend [during the 5-1 defeat to Man City], we start slow the first 15 minutes, which can happen at the Etihad and you go a goal down.

“We've seen it many times before. That can be one long, long, painful road. At that moment in time, we have the courage and the bravery to get back into the game, show our quality, get a goal, so there's a massive positive there for us in that sense.”

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