Burnley caretaker manager Mike Jackson insisted nothing would change in his approach after the Clarets suffered their first defeat on his watch to renew relegation fears at Turf Moor.
Jackson had taken 10 points from a possible 12 to lift Burnley out of the bottom three but they were second best in a 3-1 loss to Aston Villa on Saturday as frustration and nerves returned to the terraces.
Ex-Claret Danny Ings fired Villa in front early on and the result seemed inevitable from the moment Emiliano Buendia doubled the lead just after the half-hour mark.
Ollie Watkins’ header at the start of the second half made it 3-0 before Maxwel Cornet pulled one back in stoppage time.
Now Jackson, who stepped up from the under-23s after Sean Dyche was sacked last month, must find a way to restore belief ahead of difficult away games at Tottenham and Villa again – and hope they are still in the fight when they finish the season at home to Newcastle on May 22.
“Since I was 17 I’ve been involved in football and it’s part of the world you live in, you’ve got to know how to get through setbacks, otherwise you don’t stay in it, you don’t play in it, you don’t coach in it,” Jackson said.
“It’s part and parcel of it, otherwise you’d win every game and it would be boring. I have a process and the group will have a process of how we move forward. It takes a bit of time.
“Just like you enjoy the night when you win, sometimes when you lose you suffer a bit in the night-time and then you get yourselves ready to go.
“It keeps you focused and tuned right in because you know what you need to do.”
Jackson expects to learn in the next couple of days the extent of the hamstring problem that forced James Tarkowski off shortly before Watkins scored Villa’s third – a potentially key injury with captain Ben Mee still out.
In a week when it emerged Burnley’s owners must immediately repay a “significant” proportion of a £65million loan taken out during their takeover in December 2020 in the event of relegation, nerves are jangling for fans, but Jackson said it was different inside the dressing room.
“When you’re in it, you’re totally focused,” he said. “I don’t think it’s nerves. When you’re in football, you have a bit of a thing in your stomach and it sits there when you’re a player and it sits there when you’re a coach and it means you’re ready, you’re alert and you’re focused.
“Has it been nervy at this stage of the season? You’re going to get bits like that, it’s just human nature, they’re not all of a sudden going to become bulletproof.
“But they’ve proved in the four games before they’ve gone through everything – they’ve come from behind, they’ve got pegged back against West Ham, they’ve held on to a lead and now they’ve lost a game. We focus on the next one.”
