IT was a decent effort by Burnley against Manchester City on Saturday, but I think the hardest part to take was the goals conceded.

Neither were anything spectacular considering they’re a fantastic team and worth a lot of money.

Burnley got done by a couple of goals they could have done better with. That’s football. It’s the way it goes.

The good thing is got the favourites for the title came to Turf Moor and the Clarets were not made to look silly. They competed very, very well and it goes to show at home we’re solid, hard to beat, and teams aren’t looking forward to visiting us.

Turf Moor is a horrible place to come at the moment, teams are worried about it. Especially those in the top six, because they know it’s hard to break Burnley down.

The other teams, the likes of Swansea and Hull, who have a different approach, are the ones we really need to concentrate on, they’re games where we have slipped up.

The big boys just come at you and dominate possession, the other teams there is more of an expectation on us.

The hardest part now is getting that mentality right for the away games. If Stoke approach the game on Saturday the same way West Brom did we’re in trouble.

We’ve got to get our mentality and game plan right away from home. At home we’ve sat back against the big boys, let them have the ball and we’ve counter attacked.

That’s what West Brom did to us, they let us have the ball but we didn’t know what to do, we looked a little bit lost.

They opened us up and countered on us with pace and we couldn’t cope. We need to be solid, we need to give the ball to Stoke and say ‘you come at us’.

We’ve got to get back to basics with a back four and a solid three in front of them.

Stoke is a tricky game and Mark Hughes will have them very prepared.

Hopefully Dean Marney will be fit for the game. He’s the one of the three who is asked to sit and do the defensive duties, to protect Ben Mee and Michael Keane.

If he’s not fit I’d think James Tarkowski would come in. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, I’d actually like to see three at the back away from home and just do something a little bit different.

Tarkowski is defensively minded but he’s got some ability, he can pass and he’s quite cute with the ball.