SEAN Dyche felt his side paid the price for a lack of edge as Burnley crumbled to a 5-0 defeat at Arsenal.

The Clarets proved to be the ideal guests at Arsene Wenger's Emirates farewell. Having seen their European place confirmed on Saturday night Burnley could summon the intensity to challenge Arsenal as the Gunners provided the perfect send off for their boss, who will leave next week after 22 years in charge.

Burnley were 2-0 down at the break after goals from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, before Saed Kolasinac, Aubameyang and Alex Iwobi completed the rout after the break.

"It was a mixture of us having nothing to play for after that news yesterday and having that edge you really need to take on a game," Dyche said of his side's performance.

"They had something to play for, which is the legend that is Arsene Wenger, and rightly so. They turned up, they gave a performance.

"He’s probably enjoyed it and a bit frustrated thinking ‘that would have been nice a bit more often’.

"They’re a top class group of players. We know where we are, that was a sign of it today, they were clinical.

"They’re passing and movement was as good as recent performances have shown and when they do that they’re very effective.

"But I’m certainly not going to overthink or over question my players, they’ve been exceptional this season and usually over the course of a season you get one or two of those knocks along the way."

Burnley's European spot was confirmed when Everton failed to beat Southampton on Saturday night and with Arsenal desperate to end the Wenger era in front of their own fans in style, and the Clarets easing up a fraction, the result was never really in doubt once the hosts had gone ahead.

"The edge that you need when there is something on everything, it can only be one per cent sometimes, it only needs to be a fraction off and I thought there was a bit of that," Dyche said.

"They were clinical, we’ve seen them do it to better sides than us, when they’re on it they find passes in the box and clarity in the box. They can hurt teams as they did today.

"But you add in that softening off of our performance and that’s a bad mixture for us and a good mixture for them.

"We played our part unfortunately in what people thought the story was meant to finish like."

It was an emotional afternoon at the Emirates as Wenger said farewell to the Arsenal fans, but Dyche was adamant the occasion didn't get to his side.

"No, none of that. The fact there was nothing on the game for us changed it," he said.

"And Barnesy was a loss, he’s been fantastic for us. But I was really pleased with a couple of the performances, I was pleased with Jeff Hendrick. We had pockets, straight after half time we came out well.

"The goal before half-time was a real killer, it’s hard enough against these when you’re 1-0 down but to 2-0 down it’s very difficult to come back from that.

"We tried, there was no lack of effort, but there’s an edge that is important in players and they had it today, they wanted to perform and to win for their manager to leave on a high note."

Barnes went off in the first half with a shoulder or collar bone injury and Burnley are waiting on scans to confirm the severity of it.