After shipping seven goals in the first two league games, Coyle shifted from a 4-2-3-1 formation to match up Crystal Palace's 4-3-3, which became 4-5-1 without the ball.

As a result, the Clarets looked far more solid, but were unable to carve open Palace, who had nine men for the last 38 minutes.

Coyle said: "Given that we'd shipped a few goals, we'd worked on (defence) all week – maybe to the detriment of their attacking flair to be more solid as a unit.

"But their effort, application and work ethic was there. We have to build on that now and go and show our quality in the middle to final third, which we've got, and we had opportunities. But for Speroni we'd be leaving with three points."

While delighted at earning a shut out, he felt Burnley merited the points, and would have won them but for a goal from Chris McCann being harshly chalked off: "I was pleased defensively. I still wanted them to go and pass the ball when the opportunity arose. We did that more in the second half, although we did have opportunities in the first half here and there.

"I was just disappointed not to get the goal, although I thought we had scored a perfectly good one. I need to see it again because there didn't seem too much wrong with it for me."

He added: "From our point of view we were certainly disappointed not to get the three points.

"I thought the first half was quite nervous because Palace were searching for a goal and us having lost our opening two games, so I think there was a nervousness about both sides.

"I thought we started well in the second half and were starting to take charge, then the sendings off have culminated in waves of attack for the second half.

"I thought we'd scored a perfectly good goal but it was chalked off, Julian Speroni's had a couple of unbelievable saves. But I felt that given the territorial advantage we had that we could have maybe picked our final pass a little bit better.

"The application and effort was all there - there's no doubt about that - I was just disappointed we never showed our real quality in the final third and manufactured more openings than what we did.

"We just needed that goal, and if we'd have got one there's no doubt we could have gone on to add to that.

"All credit to Palace, they defended with their lives, they got blocks in, they put their head in the way.

"It would have been nice to get the three points, but if anyone had offered you a point beforehand - Crystal Palace away is obviously a tough venue. "But given the events of the day, I felt we merited all three."

And Coyle felt the referee got the dismissals right: "I think the second one was a second yellow card - I didn't even know he had a first.

"I felt Scowcroft could possibly have been sent off in the first half, but I don't want to get involved.

"That's not our job, the referee's there to do that. Neil will have his own opinions of it. Suffice to say I thought after that we could and should have won the game.."