SEAN Dyche has always maintained that his team must "earn the right" to win football games.

But the Burnley boss has admitted that he would accept getting lucky, or winning ugly, if it meant chalking off the first three points of the season.

The Clarets head to Brighton tonight (kick-off 5.30pm) having picked up just one point from a possible 18.

And while Dyche has seen positives in certain performances, at a time when key players are continuing to return from injury and absences, he knows points are paramount.

“A lot of the focus is on us now, it’s on us to perform. We’ve got to consider that. I would take a lucky win or an ugly win, I would take that as a manager," said the Burnley boss.

“But we have to earn the right to win games. If we do that, then it’s a better base to continue on from. Get that first win and then the story changes somewhat.”

He has been here before of course.

In the 2018/19 season, Burnley struggled to juggle domestic and European schedules and lost four on the bounce in the Premier League after drawing their opening game with Southampton.

A 4-0 win over Bournemouth backed up by beating Cardiff brought an end to that sequence and, although there were peaks and troughs in between, the Clarets went on to guarantee another season of top flight football with three games to spare. So he is not pressing the panic button now.

"I've never thought panic solves anything, so there's that one out of the way," he said. "It's never something I've been overly thinking about, it's always work, organisation, the way we go about our business, the reminders - making sure the players are fit and well and their well-being is good, the atmosphere. That's intact.

"The detail has been missing in some of the performances, West Brom was what my old manager John Duncan used to call a winning draw, and it was a very good performance against Tottenham here, I certainly considered we deserved something out of that.

"Chelsea were just too strong, and we weren't at the performance level needed.

"I've said all along against the super-power clubs, you've got to be right on top of your performance, you might need a decision to go your way - we didn't get that either - and if you don't do those things right, you often get beat.

"There's a reality to that game, and sometimes it just happens like that.

"The main focus for me is you want to get that first win, psychologically that's good for the group, you get to a point where you want it ideally through performance, but you'll take it however it comes, that's the way it goes.

"You move forwards and look to build on that.

"We've got to work to get that."