DAVID Jones is ready for a reaction after Burnley suffered a first defeat in 13 league games.

The Clarets surrendered top spot in the Championship after conceding two contentious goals in five second half minutes at Huddersfield Town.

The second was the most controversial, with a penalty given against Michael Duff for handball. But not only did the ball strike the defender in the midriff, not his arm, he was also outside the box.

Top scorer Danny Ings pulled one back in the 84th minute, but having earlier had a Sam Vokes goal chalked off for offside a 12-game unbeaten run was ended by their Yorkshire rivals.

To add to their frustrations, they ended the game with 10 men through Duff’s stoppage time dismissal for a second yellow card.

Burnley responded to their only other league defeat, at Brighton in August – where they also had a man sent off, by staying unbeaten throughout September and October, earning Sean Dyche back-to-back manager of the month awards.

And Jones is ready to mount a similar recovery, starting tomorrow with he visit of Dyche’s old club Watford, after admitting defeat could prove to be a kick up the backside after a run of three draws in a row.

“It’s not a disaster by any stretch. It’s the way we react,” said he midfielder.

“You face very difficult opponents in this league and if you’re slightly off it you get punished.

“That happened (on Saturday).

“Who knows whether it’s complacency.

“I know the staff would jump on any type of complacency and I don’t think we are. But sometimes subconsciously there might be a slight drop off possibly, and even if it’s a couple of per cent from your normal standards you end up getting hurt.

“Collectively that all adds up in a team, so who knows.

“One thing’s for sure there’ll be no hint of complacency come (tomorrow).

“It will just be another game to the manager, for us we just want to quickly bounce back and put in a good performance as well as getting a good result.

“We’re really eager to get back. We know what we’ve got to do.

“We’re a focused bunch of lads.

“Although we’re disappointed it’s one loss in 13. We’re not going to be too downhearted, just learn from our mistakes and hopefully that will give us a boost.”

And Jones said Burnley must put poor refereeing decisions which proved costly behind them.

“My view at the time is that it was outside the box and hit him in the stomach area so it didn’t seem as if it was a penalty at all from where I was,” he said.

“The thoughts of other players who saw it are the same as mine.

“But decisions go against you. We did have chances in the last 30 minutes and could have scraped a draw. Probably on our first half we didn’t deserve to get a result but the last 30 minutes we dug in and had a couple of chances and could have nicked something.

“We had too much to do in too little time.

“But at this level there are always ups and downs, we’re focused on the bigger picture.

“I think all the lads will have learned a lot from it. We know we’re capable of turning it around and getting a good result.

“You can’t predict anything in this league. There are good teams throughout the division so you have to be up for every game, whoever you’re playing.

“We’ll learn from this and move on.”