STEVE Cotterill had no complaints as Burnley bowed out of the Carling Cup with their heads held high last night.

The Clarets chief felt his patched-up side just did not have enough in the tank to beat Spurs and claim another Premiership scalp.

A goal in each half from Robbie Keane and a classy third from Jermain Defoe earned new Tottenham boss Martin Jol victory in his first game in charge.

And opposite number Cotterill was left to reflect on missed chances and missing players denying his side another shot at cup glory.

He said: "I couldn't have asked any more from my players. They gave me everything and I am very proud of them for what they have done for Burnley Football Club, last night and this season.

"Everyone wanted to write another story like the Aston Villa game, but we weren't equipped to do that.

"I don't think, under the circumstances, we could have done any more than create five really good chances in the first half and it might have been interesting to see what had happened if we got our noses in front.

"I don't know whether we could have gone on and won it, but we just didn't have enough in our armoury to turn in another Villa performance.

"We had too many ifs and too many buts and we just couldn't do it."

John McGreal and Frank Sinclair joined the lengthy list of absentees, with Graham Branch also only managing 41 minutes after falling ill on the eve of the game.

Cotterill, who praised the individual contributions of loan signing Gary Cahill along with Lee Roche and Michael Duff, added: "Graham hadn't been well in the night but he wanted to play, so he had to because we had nothing else.

"Jean-Louis Valois ended up going on because we couldn't start him and then we had to bring him off because we knew he couldn't finish!

"In the end, Spurs' finishing was the difference, but I could have told everyone that before the game.

"They had Defoe and Keane and just for good measure they got to bring Kanoute on, which was handy!"

Asked whether any of the six-figure sum generated from the cup run might be channeled to bolster Burnley's numbers, Cotterill replied: "I probably don't think so.

"We will just keep working twice as hard until we get a few of the players we have missing back.

"If we can get those six or seven back and get back to Saturday-to-Saturday football, it may help us.

"We just have to steady the ship a little bit now because we have been in rough waters for six weeks.

"This (situation) has been coming, but it's been tough to keep patching the lads up and sending them back out and they just can't keep doing it when they are up against it."