BURNLEY boss Eddie Howe is hoping his men can enjoy a period of home rule after their Boxing Day battering of Doncaster Rovers – but he admits there are more tough challenges awaiting the Clarets at Turf Moor.

Burnley have impressed in the road this term but while they have been good away, results at Turf Moor have been mixed.

But Howe now wants the Clarets to make it back-to-back wins – and complete a seasonal double – on Saturday when Hull City arrive into town.

“You hope Monday’s win is the end of the problems,” said Howe. “But I have been in football long enough to know not everything is plain sailing.

“We were really pleased with the win over Doncaster but there are lots of tough challenges ahead for us.”

The Boxing Day 3-0 coast against Doncaster came 16 days after the meek 1-0 home reverse to lowly Portsmouth but at the halfway stage of the campaign the manager is now looking for a continued improvement and more clean sheets.

Of the first half of the season he said: “It’s been a difficult start but in some respects that didn’t surprise us.

“I think throughout the campaign we’ve slowly got better and better and hopefully we can carry that on into the second half.

“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’re pleased with the clean sheet but we still have some work to do.

“In recent games we have performed pretty well defensively. It’s never something that you totally think you’ve mastered, you’ve got to keep working at it, but I’m delighted with all the players.”

As much as the manager is keen to see his men kick on, he is aware that the home meeting with Hull will be anything but a home formality, despite the manner of Burnley’s stunning 3-2 win at the KC Stadium last month.

That day the Clarets trailed 2-0 with 12 minutes remaining and were heading towards the bottom three only for a remarkable late turn-around to stun the Tigers.

And Howe said: “We’ve played Hull very recently and they were excellent against us for 65 or 70 minutes.

“It was a difficult afternoon for us and then we had that comeback that really started this run.

“Hopefully we can perform over 90 minutes this time and carry on the momentum because I thought the intensity and the way we approached Monday’s game was good right from the first whistle, and I think the crowd saw that and got behind us.”