DEAN Marney has stressed the importance of Burnley finding goals from all over the pitch as he ended a two-year goal drought with a stunner against Manchester City.

The 32-year-old gave the Clarets the lead against City with a volley from distance to net his first goal in 991 days, but the title favourites hit back to claim all three points at Turf Moor.

Marney was the ninth different Burnley player to score in the Premier League already this season, and he knows sharing the load in front of goal is key, even if he’s in the team to protect his own goal rather than threaten the oppositions’.

“I’ve never been renowned for my goalscoring, it’s not really my job, but it’s nice to chip in every now and again and I enjoyed it, but it would have been nice to get the three points,” said Marney, who netted his 10th Burnley goal in his 213th game.

“I just thought ‘why not?’. Sometimes they end up in row Z, more times than not actually, but it was nice to see it go in.

“I’ve never thought of myself as a goalscoring midfielder.

“It’s nice to chip in, to take the pressure off the strikers, but that’s not my job and that’s not what I’m in the team to do, I’m in the team to try and do the other side of the game.”

Burnley had turned in one of their worst performances of Dyche’s reign last Monday night in slipping to a 4-0 defeat at West Brom, and Marney knew it was imperative that they responded to that with a performance, even if the points ultimately proved elusive.

“It was huge,” he said. “The gaffer made reference to it and we just got away from what we’re good at.

“We never really have more possession than a team and on Monday we did. West Brom sucked us into their game plan and did it really well.

“It was hugely disappointing but the beauty of football is there’s always another game around the corner, so it was important to put on a performance for the crowd and ourselves, and to get back to what we’re good at.”

Burnley were determined to make life tough for City on Pep Guardiola’s first visit to Turf Moor and Marney was pleased with the way the Clarets battled but frustrated at the way Sergio Aguero was allowed two tap-ins to turn the game on its head.

“We had a game plan, we wanted to try and turn them and make it uncomfortable. I thought we did that,” said the former Hull City midfielder.

“We got the goal and we looked fairly comfortable. They’ve got quality players and they turned it up a gear.

“The goals were poor from our view really, they’ve not had to do much to get those goals, which is disappointing.”

Marney will now face a race against time to be fit for the trip to Stoke City on Saturday after coming off just before the break on Saturday.

He said: “It’s not too bad. I’ve had a bit of a nerve problem in the back or hamstring and sometimes it gets to a point where you just can’t continue. I was gutted but against a team like that if you’re not 100 per cent you’re going to get found out.”