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Football News: Burnley Premier League season so far

Burnley Premier League season so far
Image from: acrossthepond.co

Results so far:

H v Swansea City 0-1
H v Liverpool 2-0
A v Chelsea 0-3
H v Hull City 1-1
A v Leicester City 0-3
H v Watford 2-0
H v Arsenal 0-1
A v Southampton 1-3
H v Everton 2-1
A v Manchester United 0-0
H v Crystal Palace 3-2

Burnley, as they were last season in their promotion from the Championship, are very reliant on their home form and defensive strength. Their main weakness is usually their lack of goals, with the home match with Crystal Palace standing as an anomaly, a blip. Sean Dyche works on keeping his team tightly focused on a deep-lying defence, with the aim of stopping the opposition, first and foremost, and relying on the lightning paced forwards to run in behind the opponents, who they have sucked in towards them, leaving that space behind.

So far, his approach is paying dividends, as it did for large parts of last season for Leicester as well. However, Burnley have not got the finances and quality of players to do any more than look to stay afloat in the Prem, in the short term at least. While they are so far flying high in the top half of the table, they will spend the season looking over their shoulder and aiming merely to stay up, rather than push forward.

 

With only a small lead over Hull, who are in 19th place, Dyche will be pushing his players hard to keep performance levels up and continue to show the fight and desire that he put them in such a strong position. Over the course of a whole season, you would normally expect the higher quality available to the likes of West Ham United to tell. Normal does seem to have gone out of the window in English football these days, so perhaps the Clarets can do more than merely dream of a top half finish?

With Dyche in charge, they have every chance, despite the lack of real quality within the ranks. He will keep them organised and difficult to beat, and not let them relax and think the job is done. As they showed in the victory over Liverpool, if you give them a sniff of a win, they will put their bodies on the line and give everything for the cause. That should be enough to keep them in the Prem. Should be.

Written by Tris Burke November 09 2016 10:07:21