BURNLEY boss Sean Dyche felt compelled to speak out against criticism of Ashley Barnes after Saturday’s draw with Chelsea because he thought it had ‘gone a bit too far’.

The 25-year-old striker has been under attack since Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho accused him of a ‘criminal’ tackle on Nemanja Matic in the 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge.

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Matic was sent-off for his retaliation, but Barnes was not even penalised, and the FA will not take retrospective action against the Clarets striker because the incident was seen by referee Martin Atkinson.

The referees’ assessor Steve Greaves has reportedly backed Atkinson on all four key moments in this game, which Mourinho first raised immediately after the match and then continued to question in an appearance on Sky Sports’ Goals on Sunday.

After 48 hours of accusations and criticism against his side, Dyche spoke out on Monday night as he put the club’s version of events in West London across.

“It’s well documented my beliefs on how we conduct ourselves on behalf of myself, the team and the club,” the Burnley manager said. “We generally don’t question events that happen in the game, we’re happy for referees to deal with them and to speak about the game. It’s a shame on this occasion because I’d like to speak about the game because I thought we were excellent.

“On this occasion I think it’s gone a bit too far, so I think we should give a balanced view retrospectively, with the evidence we’ve got, the evidence we can show and my opinion.

“I stated afterwards I hadn’t seen it (the Matic incident). We take one analyst to games, he hadn’t time to get down to the dressing rooms. I commended the players on their performance and then went straight out to do the media.”

Dyche defended Barnes for his ‘coming together’ with Matic, and said he found Mourinho’s use of the word ‘criminal’ hard to accept as no Chelsea player or official, apart from Matic, reacted at the time of the incident.

He said Chelsea could have had two penalties, for Michael Kightly’s handball, which ‘you would expect to see given’, and for Jason Shackell’s push on Diego Costa, which was a ‘tough one’ to call.