SEAN Dyche felt his players did enough to warrant a win against Preston, and that Burnley should have been playing against 10 men.

Marnick Vermijl was booked for a foul on Ben Mee towards the end of the first half, but was let off after again impeding Mee in the 53rd minute.

Had the incident occurred without the right back already seeing yellow, then a card would surely have been brandished.

But there was a similar scenario involving Joey Barton after the break, and Preston boss Simon Grayson felt Premier League official Kevin Friend refereed the game fairly, after Barton also escaped a second booking.

“How on earth we haven’t had a second sending off in two weeks I have no idea. I’m scratching my head over that one. We have to go with what the ref is allegedly debating,” said Dyche, who was otherwise encouraged by what he considered a strong start to the derby clash.

“I thought we started unbelievably well, the best first 25 minutes we’ve had probably all season. We were totally dominant with the ball and we really had them on the back foot, we had so many really good chances,” the Burnley boss continued.

“You can only deserve a game if the final outcome is a win, but we did enough for one.

“The obvious sign is their keeper was man of the match, so that’s a sign you’ve been productive.

“We’ve got to punish teams when we created as many chances as we did today. On top of that, we conceded a really soft goal.

“The second was a good goal from their point of view; the first was poor from us – we gave it away far too cheaply,” Dyche continued.

“If we keep creating that many chances, though, we will win plenty of matches, that’s for sure.

“We’ve been really productive, but we have to keep the back door shut and you have to get decisions go your way and we didn’t get that. But eventually it comes down to you and we just weren’t clinical.”

Alluding to the decision not to send off Vermijl, Dyche added: “I must make it clear that we had more than enough chances to take care of the business ourselves,but it would have been helpful if the right decision was given.”