Nicky Hayen was left pleased with the debut appearance of new Burnley defender Max Alleyne.
The 21-year-old was thrown straight into Burnley’s starting XI for Sunday’s Championship opener against West Ham.
The centre-back did very little wrong, looking cool and composed on the ball and diligently carrying out his work with minimal fuss.
“I thought he did quite well,” Hayen said. “He made a lot of good choices on the ball and off the ball.
“Of course it was like a question mark, because I've seen a lot of games from him, he comes from City, he knows, and I know also, the way he plays, it suits.
“But he had only one training session and we had a pre-season without him. We saw already some good things, but at the end we took the decision to give him the chance and I think he did quite well.”
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Alleyne was partnered alongside an experienced campaigner in Kyle Walker, someone he will know well from his parent club Manchester City.
But it was also a risk throwing together a new centre back partnership, especially when Alleyne had just one training session with the Clarets and Walker is still learning a new role.
When asked how he thought the pair got on, Hayen added: “Did we give a lot of chances away today? I don't think so.
“They did quite well, and of course we can work on details and some things can be better, but it's not only about these two.
“It's always finding connections and sub-principles that are really important for players, and this is something that we're building on.
“Even at the end of the season I will say nothing is perfect, and day by day we try to get better, but you have to remember also they played a certain style for two seasons. You know if you do two seasons or two years every day the same, to change a habit, it's not always that easy.
“I believe you see already how we changed some things and we're quite satisfied, but I'm always straightforward.
“This was good today, but we can always improve and be better, and I will say it was good. But still we want to make that next step and next step, because we have the ambition to go up, and we have to be clinical for example with our chances, more efficient, so this is a working point, and that's why I love the job, because you can always improve.