MARK Hughes paid tribute to Burnley’s defensive qualities after his Stoke City side were beaten at the Britannia Stadium this afternoon.

The Clarets raced into a 2-0 lead thanks to a Danny Ings brace and, although Jonathan Walters pulled a goal back, Stoke could not find an equaliser despite long periods of pressure.

Former Blackburn Rovers boss Hughes was left looking on enviously as Burnley registered successive league wins.

Stoke had been hoping to do the same, after winning at Tottenham in their last match.

“We were looking to get back to back wins in the Premier League, which is massive,” Hughes said.

“We finish the game and find ourselves looking at Burnley who have done what we wanted to do.

“Credit to them, they defended for their lives in the second half because they had to, put bodies on the line, got blocks in and were able to see it out.

“We lost this game because of the first 10 or 15 minutes where we didn’t get a real grip of what the opposition were likely to do against us.

“We had a makeshift back four, we had to move things around this morning when Erik Pieters failing a fitness test but we still had enough experience at the back to deal with the situations we allowed Burnley to create.

“We gave them two opportunities through collective errors and individual errors, and they took them.”