FORMER Burnley manager Owen Coyle has claimed he has become a better manager after surviving the taunts from Clarets fans after his exit.

He said: “It was fair to say the stick I got was not particularly nice.

"I understood where it was coming from. I can’t say I enjoyed it, definitely not.

“But the traumatic things that happened in January have given me extra steel that was probably needed to deal with stuff that comes my way.

“I am still a young manager. I don't have all the answers but I am getting better year in and year out.

“I am better than this time last year and some of that will be down to the experiences I have had.

“The plan put in place at Burnley was the right plan for that football club financially, because in the season where we came up, there were two or three occasions where it was tight paying salaries.

“The cup runs we had helped us but the chairman Barry Kilby and the director Brendan Flood poured in a lot of their own personal money - and at a huge risk they might not get it back.

“So the plan Burnley had was the right plan for Burnley but not the right plan for us, in terms of my development and how hard we'd worked to get to the Premier League.

“We worked as hard we could as staff to get to the Premier League but accepted the club could go no further in terms of finance.”