DISAPPOINTED Burnley manager Owen Coyle felt a poor first-half performance set them up for a fall at Wolves.

The Clarets were slow to start against the Champion-ship leaders, and paid a heavy price by slipping to only their second defeat in 16 games, while Clarke Carlisle’s late sending off compounded a miserable afternoon.

Coyle admitted he had no complaints about a free kick being awarded for the defender’s late challenge on Sylvan Ebanks-Blake. But with the incident committed on the halfway line, and Carlisle having already been booked for a foul on the same player early in the second half, he felt card-happy referee Darren Deadman - who brandished eight in total - should have shown more restraint.

“The second booking, for me there’s no argument that it was a free kick. The point that I tried to make, although it fell on deaf ears again, was that there was no malice in the challenge,” said the Burnley boss.

“It was a foul, but it’s all too easy now to brandish a second yellow card and hide behind your rules. We’re all looking for common sense.

"I make no apologies for saying it, we're all biased towards our own side, but there were far worse things in that game that went unpunished.

"Clarke Carlisle has a suspected broken nose and there wasn't even a foul given for the incident."

But Coyle added: "There were a number of things that annoyed me, but I'm not going to hide behind the fact that, in the first half, we weren't good enough.

"In the second half I thought we offered enough, and it would have got us into the game if we'd have managed to retain the 11 on the park and obviously not made the mistake that we did for the second goal.

"I thought we looked very comfortable and were going to get a goal and look to push on from there.

"As it happened, we never. We switched off and it was self-inflicted. It was an easy enough ball to deal with and the boy concerned, who I've spoken to, has allowed it to bounce and we've paid a heavy price for that. It's certainly disappointing.

"But you can see why Wolves are top of the league - they're a very good side with some very good players, and I don't want to get caught up in taking anything away from Mick (McCarthy) and what they're doing because they've got a way of playing that's very effective."

And as Burnley's run of one defeat in 15 league and cup games came to an end before Wednesday's trip to Premier League leaders Chelsea, Coyle continued: "We need to learn from it. It's all very well winning your games and being bubbly, but we'll probably learn more from (Saturday) than what we ever will.

"We were well versed in all the attributes that Wolves have at their disposal.

"We came here trying to win a game against a team that's top of the league on merit.

"We don't like losing any game, but we'll look to bounce back quickly. Obviously it's at Chelsea but we'll go there and be positive."