These are great days and we should enjoy them

Last updated : 26 April 2014 By Tony Scholes

McCarthy, who congratulated every Burnley player at the end of the game, needed to see his team win to retain their hopes of a top six finish but a goal from his former Wolves player Michael Kightly ended those hopes.

He said: "It was a good performance today and when they scored we were on top. They started better than us but we grew into the game and had chances but then we made an error, they had Johnny on the Spot in Michael Kightly to put the ball in the net and that cost us.

"That changes the course of games and while I'm very proud of my players and what we have achieved this season, I'm disappointed we have not made the top six.

"We've come a long way when you think that we came here last season for the last game only having just stayed up the game before and today we came here with a chance of getting in the play-offs.

"It's been fine margins between us being in the top six and just missing out. It's been those chances we've had that we have not taken and the mistakes we have made, like today, that have ended up in the back of the net.

"The players deserve a lot of credit for what we have achieved this season but I'm still left with disappointment, we all are, because I felt we could have finished in the top six."

Another win then for Burnley after clinching the promotion, but Dyche wants more and had asked for his players to remain focused.

"These are great days and we should enjoy them and make the most of them," Dyche said. "We wanted the families there and the chance to take the children on the pitch because these things don't happen every year in a player's career, but through all that the players managed to stay focused and I was so pleased for them.

"To only lose five games so far this season is, I think, an absolutely marvellous achievement. There have been markers in history all season and now I've said to the lads it is about branding yourself into the history of the football club.

"It has a very rich history and to have a marker 30 or 40 years down the line where children here will grow up and they say I remember the team that got 95 points. That's going to be very difficult for a team in the future to match.

"We've got one more game and I said to the lads, be ready because we're going hard again because I want that 95 points."

He added: "It's a fantastic achievement and very difficult to do over the course of a season to get two points a game. Everyone knows that is the marker.

"I'm very proud of the players and the staff and everyone involved with the club to be honest.

"The main thing for me, and I speak to the players about this, is that it's easy to handle failure because you know you have to do more but they've handled success and that's a completely different thing.

"During the season it's built and built and built, and they've handled it fantastically well. Success is in hand and if you look at that performance today, after all that has gone on, to deliver what we have done is testament to the group.

"The high tension had softened but I think today showed just what the players were all about. They've been absolutely first class."