BURNLEY may have lost against Arsenal, but Sean Dyche was pleased with the mentality his players showed at the Emirates Stadium.

Dyche's side fell to a narrow 2-1 loss, their first of the season, after goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Ashley Barnes drew his side level on the brink of half-time, but the fire power of the Gunners prevailed in the end.

"It's hard coming to these places, and going with a mentality that we want to take something," said Dyche.

"Sometimes you can get that mentality 'this is a tough place to go' and it can grow, and it gets too powerful.

"So I said 'take that away, we want to go down there and actually take the game on to get something', and I thought we did that, even second half, the pressing was still good, the fitness was exceptional on a hot day, much hotter pitch side.

"Overall, you're disappointed not to get anything, but the mentality to perform away from home in that manner, I was really, really pleased.

"Now you're laying benchmarks, and we've got to go and do that again next week."

Burnley went in to the half-time break level at 1-1 after Lacazette's opener was cancelled out late on by the in-form Barnes - Dyche was especially encouraged the performance of his side in the opening period.

"I think it's disappointing result-wise, rather than the performance, that was very good, particularly in the first half, I thought we were really good in the first half.

"Second half they got more of a foothold, keeping possession, dropping deeper to keep possession, and we shut down the way they tried to build from the back, we did that really well, to the point where even the crowd were saying 'just kick it', which is interesting.

"But I thought they pressing lines were good, the energy was good, and the main thing for me was the mentality."

Arsenal's opener came from a free-kick after Ben Mee handball, after seeing the incident back Dyche thought his skipper was unfortunate.

"Superb response, I thought we were a bit unlucky, I don't want to cry it in, but Ben (Mee) is unlucky, I've seen it back and he tries everything to get his arm out of the way, I don't know how that's handball," he said.

"But to be clear, we then had a second phase to deal with, and half did, and then they score from the next one.

"I think that's still an important decision, early on, they're trying to build momentum, and that allowed them.

"The second is a poor giveaway from us and a very good player commits a defender and whacks it in the corner, which sometimes happens."