BURNLEY do not need to panic despite seeing their winless run stretch to seven games, according to midfielder Steven Defour.

But the Belgian has warned the Clarets that they cannot afford to take their foot off the gas. Defour admitted Burnley may have done just that in the first half of Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Crystal Palace and is keen to avoid a repeat as they seek to end a winless run stretching back to the victory over Stoke City in mid-December.

Since then the Clarets have exited the FA Cup after a 4-1 defeat at Manchester City and taken three points from six league games.

But Burnley’s start to the season had been so impressive that they remain seventh with a three-point lead over Leicester in eighth.

“We showed good character in the second half but we’ve got to try and show it all the way through,” Defour said of the display at Selhurst Park.

“The gaffer said at half-time ‘nothing comes easy’ and maybe we were taking it easier because we’re seventh in the league.

“There are no bad teams in this league so we have to be 100 per cent all the time. That’s what the first half showed us.

“The positive point on that is we’re still seventh so we’re not worrying but we want to end up as high as possible. We would like to win as quickly as possible.”

Defour insists there are no major tweaks required for the Clarets as they look to return to winning ways against Manchester United at Turf Moor this weekend.

The 29-year-old added: “Nothing really (to work on), we just need to play a whole game like the second half. That’s what we did in the first half of the season.

“We did really good so we just have to do that and we’ll be alright.

“Of course there’s no need to panic. We deserve the points that we have so we just have to keep on working. We had a little bit of bad luck against Manchester United and Liverpool so we could easily have had more points but that’s just the way it is.”

They key for the Clarets now is to back up their stunning start to the season and Defour admits it would be a waste if they fell away, adding the squad were being driven by a desire to ‘make the fans proud’.

“It would be such a waste to have such a good start and then end up just above the relegation zone,” the former Anderlecht man said.

“We want to make the fans proud by finishing as high as possible.”