BURNLEY midfielder Steven Defour said the Clarets are using their ‘relegation favourites’ tag as a motivation to prove people wrong.

Sean Dyche’s side were among those expected to go down by many at the start of the season but Sean Dyche’s side sit in 13th place in the Premier League after 13 games.

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The Clarets have a three point cushion on the bottom three and a five point gap to Swansea and six points to bottom side Sunderland.

Although both Hull and Sunderland are now odds-on to go down, Burnley are still third favourites for the drop, and their Belgian midfielder said that was being used as encouragement within the squad.

“It’s a motivation,” he said. “For us it’s quite simple - nobody expects anything from us so we just want to give it a go and see.”

Burnley will look to improve their away record this weekend with a trip to Stoke City.

So far they have taken just one point on the road and Defour is aware that is a statistic that needs improving.

“Away from home, especially, we need to start getting some points. That’s one of the things that we need to improve,” said the 28-year-old.

It has been a different story at Turf Moor though, with Burnley claiming all four of the league wins in front of their own fans.

That has included wins over Liverpool and Everton while the Clarets were within seconds of taking a point from Arsenal and ran Manchester City close at the weekend.

Asked if the squad was gaining confidence by the home game, Defour said: “I think there is. We’ve had a good period where we’ve taken some important points against big teams so that gives us a lot of confidence.”

Now the challenge is to put teams further down the table to the sword, with five of their six Premier League fixtures before the turn of the year against teams in the bottom half.

“It’s more important to win against those teams because they are more direct opponents to stay up in the league,” said Defour.

“I think we have gained experience, also with the lads that played here two years ago. We’re getting that experience to play these kind of games.”