FIVE wins, five draws, five defeats. Burnley’s home form, Eddie Howe says, “shouts of inconsistencies”.

It’s a situation the Clarets boss is desperate to clear up, and at the same time address the reasons behind Saturday’s loss to Southampton – not so much the defeat itself, but the performance.

“When you look at the team you play against sometimes you’ve got to hold your hands up and say they were better than us on the day.

“They’ve spent a lot of money and have a very strong squad. I don’t think there’s any disgrace to lose to Southampton, it was perhaps the manner in which we lost that was the most disappointing thing. We didn’t show Southampton what we were capable,” he said.

“You always look at the performance, and if the performance is good you can usually take the result.

“In the second half at Peterborough we were excellent, for long spells against Derby we were the better side.

“Although we didn’t win the games we came out with credit. Southampton’s probably the first game in a while where we came out of the game with no credit.

“I’ll be banging the drum saying we’ve got to get the performance right.”

And Howe says he will take encouragement from the response to their last defeat, at Norwich in the FA Cup third round.

Burnley bounced back with an impressive performance, and win, at Middlesbrough – their seventh out of eight wins on the road - and as they bid to boost their home form, Howe is hoping for a repeat reaction.

“It’s important we don’t dwell on defeat for too long. We said the same thing after the Norwich game.

“They played a weakened side that day but Norwich are a Premier League team and we reacted really well to that defeat. Hopefully we can do the same again on the back of this one,” said Howe, who has called for his players to produce a “special night” against Barnsley and make amends for defeat at Oakwell in October.

“They’ve lost a few key players. Earlier in the season they were a very strong outfit and they deservedly beat us. We didn’t do ourselves justice on the night,” he added.

“They’ve lost a few players in the window and brought a few in. They’re a different side now with different strengths and qualities. They’ve still got the front two, who caused us a problem at Barnsley, and we know Keith Hill is organised and he’ll have a gameplan.

“We need to make sure we perform at home.

“I wouldn’t say we’re due necessarily a big one (win), but in terms of a result we are.

“We haven’t lost many of late at home, our performances have been okay, but I’d like to see us produce a really special night on a Tuesday in front of our fans.”

It took Burnley five attempts to record their first Championship win at Turf Moor.

Consoled by losing only one out of 30 midweek league and cup games since December 2007, they go into tonight’s Championship clash unbeaten in four at home. However, Howe accepts there is still scope for improvement, especially if they are to maintain designs on the top six.

“Any successful team needs to win their home games,” he said.

“Our away form’s been brilliant but you can’t rely on that.

“We had back-to-back wins around Christmastime and we hoped that we’d turned a corner in terms of results at home.

“The two draws (against Derby and Peterborough) were disappointing because we could have easily won both games.

“We didn’t, and we haven’t, and we want to turn those draws into wins.

“Our record at home shouts of inconsistencies – five wins, five draws, five defeats. We need to get that right. We need to go into home games believing we’re going to win.”