Why Scott Parker felt 'proud' after Burnley's Carabao Cup exit at the hands of Wolves

Burnley’s head coach was forced to name a makeshift starting XI for their second round tie, naming players out of position and including four youngsters on the bench.

Despite the one-sided 2-0 defeat, owing to Goncalo Guedes’ brace, Parker felt there were still plenty of positives to take.

“There’s no complaints really,” he explained.

“Obviously you don’t want to lose football matches and we came here tonight with the objective to try and get a result and we’ve not managed to do that, so first and foremost that’s disappointing.

“I asked the players for a reaction from the weekend because it’s fair to say at the weekend we lacked a little something in the game against Sunderland and we fell short of what I certainly expect from this team.

“There’s no denying we’re stretched at the moment, but as mad as it sounds I’m immensely proud of the players out there tonight in terms of what they delivered, because they gave absolutely everything on the pitch in different circumstances.

“There were three debuts as well, two debuts from young boys, so overall I’m really pleased and there’s probably something more deep what I’m pleased about.”

Hannibal Mejbri was thrown straight into the starting line-up to make his debut, despite only signing earlier that day.

He joined Joe Worrall and Bashir Humphreys in also getting their first taste of action with the Clarets.

On Mejbri’s first outing, Parker said: “I thought he did very well. You saw his qualities and you saw why we signed him. He’s a huge talent, a winner and a fighter.

“He showed his running power, I just thought everything about him...I thought he was superb. Along with Joe and Bashir, these boys have practically only been in the building for three or four days, it’s been such a quick turnaround and we’ve barely had any time to prep, it was mainly done over meetings.

“They fitted straight into the team though and looked like they had been here for a while, which is full credit to them.”

The trio of new signings weren’t the only debutants though, with academy stars Tommy McDermott and Will Hugill being given their senior bow.

“I had one of those moments when I was 16 playing away at Bury for Charlton, where I was itching to get on the pitch and make my debut,” Parker said.

“I’ve lived in those shoes so fair play to them. It’s two boys out of the academy coming to a Premier League side and making their debut.

“They did themselves proud and their families proud.”

With the derby coming up on Saturday, Parker decided to take no risks – taking off Mejbri at the break alongside CJ Egan-Riley and Josh Brownhill.

As Parker explained after the game, that was always part of the plan.

“That was exactly it,” he revealed.

“Obviously the main priority is the weekend, but in an ideal world you probably don’t want to be in that position but we are, so that’s what makes me very proud of the team.

“We made changes but we had to balance it and those subs were planned before the game.”