DEFIANT Burnley boss Stan Ternent is backing his players to bounce back from last night's mauling at Manchester City and get their season-up-and-running at Turf Moor on Saturday.

The Clarets turned in a woeful second-half performance at Maine Road to effectively crash out of the Worthington Cup in the first round for the second season running.

Rampant City ran in four goals after the break to complete a 5-0 win and make their progress a formality from the return leg in a fortnight's time.

While that fixture will now be an irrelevance, except for Burnley to try and regain some pride, Saturday's visit of Chesterfield is now a vital game.

The Clarets desperately need a first win of the season to show they're heading in the right direction - and Ternent is adamant they will deliver the goods.

"It was a very disappointing performance and we have to do much better than that and I can assure you we will, starting on Saturday," he said.

"I feel I've got good players but last night we had an off-night and we can't have too many of them. "I feel I have to be positive, I'll pick the players up and Saturday is very important.

"It's very early in the season but 5-0 is never acceptable.

"They're my players and I stand up for them and they will respond, there's no question of doubt they will respond so it won't be a problem for me.

"Last night was very disappointing and it's very difficult to know what to say because I know they are much better than they showed."

Burnley were a match for the First Division side for much of the first half but couldn't score and then a combination of City's class and the Clarets ineptitude saw the tide turn dramatically after the break.

"We could have had a couple of goals when it was 0-0 and I thought for the first half-hour we were fine but things like this are sent to try you," Ternent added.

"It was bad night. They got a cheap first goal, self-inflicted, the second one was a smashing goal and again the third one was self-inflicted.

"And again after that we surrendered really. I thought City played very well but for the last half-hour we were poor.

"Perhaps surrender's a strong word, they played very well and they had their tails up." Even in their worst nightmares, Burnley would never have envisaged a near repeat of the 6-0 hiding they were given by City in the League back in March.

But Ternent is hoping that his side, beaten last night for the first time in 13 games, will show a similar reaction.

He added: "It was a poor performance, there's no getting away from that. But being an eternal optimist this happened to us at Burnley last year and the next game was against Preston when we played very well.

"After that we went on a run and that's the first game we've lost since so hopefully the same thing will happen."

The Clarets cause will be helped if Andy Cooke and John Mullin recover from knocks that ruled them out at Maine Road.

"They weren't fit last night so we'll see how they are for Saturday," said Ternent, who must be considering further changes to personnel and tactics.

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