SEAN Dyche was adamant that this was more than just a ‘free hit’ for his side when the question was posed to him before the visit of Manchester City’s expensively assembled team of superstars.

Professional pride and belief would have told Dyche and Burnley that all Premier League teams are conquerable, not to mention the fact they have already felled Liverpool at Turf Moor this term.

In the end it was not to be for the Clarets, but they can take heart and encouragement from a rousing 90 minutes.

At the moment you leave away games with Burnley fearing the worst, and home games thinking they have more than enough quality and fight to survive. Once again you were left with the latter impression on Saturday.

Pep Guardiola had been fulsome in his praise of Burnley on Friday, and he was again after the game. You imagine this is the type of test away from home that Barcelona and Bayern Munich never really got in La Liga or the Bundesliga.

Burnley are unlikely to win a passing contest against City. Instead they sought to make their visit to Turf Moor an awkward experience for Guardiola and co, and one they wouldn’t forget.

They achieved that, but were ultimately left cursing two defensive lapses that cost them the game.

When Dean Marney scored his first goal in 991 days the Clarets were dreaming of another major scalp at home. But when you give Sergio Aguero a chance inside the six-yard box, he’s unlikely to miss, as Burnley found to their cost either side of half-time.

The drama had begun before kick-off, with news of Tom Heaton’s absence with a calf injury picked up in the defeat at West Brom, ending his run of consecutive league starts at 142.

In came 37-year-old Paul Robinson for his first competitive action since September 2014, a mere 802 days ago, when memories of Marney’s goal at Birmingham in a 3-3 draw were still fresh.

That appearance, of course, came for Blackburn Rovers in a 3-2 defeat to Derby, while Robinson’s last Premier League game was back in May 2012.

But he showed no signs of ring rust. getting down low to his left to turn Aguero’s 20-yard piledriver behind inside eight minutes.

That came just seconds after Burnley had a strong penalty appeal waved away when Nicolas Otamendi barged Jeff Hendrick in the back after the Republic of Ireland midfielder had controlled George Boyd’s free-kick on his chest.

The Clarets had started the game as brightly as the winter sunshine that bathed Turf Moor and moments after Johann Berg Gudmundsson had tested Claudio Bravo for the first time, they were ahead.

It came from the most unlikely of sources as well. Robinson’s long free-kick was headed away from danger by Otamendi, or so he had thought. Instead Marney lashed a volley from 30 yards into the corner of the net.

City found a leveller shortly before the break. They went close seconds before but Matt Lowton made an excellent block as Nolito tried to pull the trigger, but from the resulting corner the ball found its way to Aguero at the back post and he bundled home.

The Argentinean must have thought he’d turned the game on its head minutes later only to see Robinson produce a flying one-handed save to tip his left-footed curler from outside the box wide of the post.

City had started the second half with plenty of possession but when they forged ahead it came about in calamitous circumstances.

A goalmouth scramble looked to be over when Ben Mee and Stephen Ward had the chance to clear, but they tripped over each other, allowing Fernandinho to get a low cross in which Aguero steered home from close range.

Burnley began to find a response as the clock ticked down, with City looking vulnerable under the high ball, and Michael Keane glanced a header straight at Bravo before seeing another cleared off the line by Aleksander Kolarov.

The Clarets twice came close in stoppage time. First Keane’s header hit Mee and allowed an uncertain Bravo to pounce on the ball, before he showed safer hands to hold substitute Ashley Barnes’ hooked overhead from close range.