SEAN Dyche believes Burnley are still enjoying a good season despite their recent poor run of results, but said his side hadn’t settled for the success they have already achieved this term.

Defeat to Crystal Palace on Saturday extended the Clarets’ winless Premier League run to six games, having not gone more than two league outings without a win this term until late December.

But Dyche insists complacency isn’t becoming an issue in his squad and said there was a desire among the players and staff to finish as high as possible in the table.

“Were people expecting us to be seventh? No, so therefore we’re delivering a good season even if we’re on a bad run at the moment. I think that’s fair. I think our fans will look at it like that,” the Clarets chief said.

“But that doesn’t mean we settle for it, that’s not the case at all, that’s what I reminded the players at half-time (at Palace).

“We’re not settling for that but there has to be a reality to it.”

Despite the recent dip in results the pressure remains off Burnley.

The Clarets are still three points ahead of Leicester City in eighth and nine clear of the bottom half.

But Dyche played down suggestions that lack of pressure could be leading to a lull in results, claiming demands inside his squad are always higher than expectation from the outside.

“You have your own internal pressures way more than anybody could write about. The players should have that and I think ours do, there’s an authenticity to it and an honesty to it,” he added.

“There’s a lot more demand on me to continue pushing them and then they push each other. That doesn’t go away.

“I want to finish as high up the Premier League as I can, so do the players and so does the club. That doesn’t change, but it has to be balanced out if with where the reality of football is and our part in that. But there’s no settling for less.”

Dyche and his side welcome Manchester United to Turf Moor on Saturday and the Burnley boss is focussing on the season as a whole so far rather than the recent blip.

“Before this we’d won three out of four,” he added. “There’s always an urgency to perform and get points regardless of your runs.

“If you add this run into the rest of the season you’d actually go ‘it’s still a fantastic season’. That has to be put in the melting pot.

“Early season we were the right side of the margins, the margins are still tight but now we’re not the right side of them. We’re not a team that have been winning 4-0, so the margins are tight in any given game. You only need a decision to go against you or a couple of injuries to go against you and the margins can shift.”