Sunday 5 April 2015 18:48, UK
Sean Dyche praised Burnley’s effort to earn a point against Tottenham but warned his side must turn good performances into wins if they are to stay in the Premier League.
It ended goalless in a hard-fought game at Turf Moor and, despite a lack of chances from either team, Burnley manager Dyche believes his side had the better of their opposition.
He told Sky Sports: “I think we edged it overall, particularly first half. There wasn’t a lot in it. I think the conditions seemed to affect the game, the feel of the game.
“There were some moments of quality, and we had certainly one golden chance to unlock the game, and unfortunately we didn’t take that. Overall, we kept a very good side very quiet, I don’t think they really had a serious effort on goal.
“Two clean sheets out of the last three games against some very good sides. I’ve mentioned about the general feel of our performances, it’s been good. We need to keep working hard to turn them into wins.”
The best chance of the 90 minutes came early on, when Danny Ings squandered a one-on-one with Tottenham goalkeeper Michel Vorm. The striker, who has scored nine Premier League goals this season, has been tipped for an England call-up, but Dyche insists he wasn’t worried about the miss.
“I want players to be free in the box to go and miss,” Dyche said.
“It sounds ridiculous, but if they miss, they miss. We want them to have that freedom, that awareness, that the next one goes in… that’s the thinking.”
Ings’ England omission was perhaps hindered by Harry Kane, who received his chance for the Three Lions’ recent matches against Lithuania and Italy. On Sunday though, Burnley kept him quiet; something that Dyche was pleased with.
“A lot has been made of Harry Kane, and rightly so. A fine player scoring lots of goals, and I thought we handled that very well. As I suggest, I don’t think they had many golden chances, if any. We kept them very quiet, and we were progressive in our play. It was quite evident the way we went about it that we wanted to win the game.
“Good signs again, but good signs don’t always get you anything. We’ve got to make sure we win games, and there’s plenty of endeavour there, there’s plenty of moments of quality. We’ve got to keep adding to that in order to turn reasonable performances into wins.”
Burnley’s difficult run of fixtures continues next week when they host Arsenal, live on Saturday Night Football. The Clarets boss is well aware of the task ahead, but praised his team for picking up more points that has been expected of them.
“I think we’re in a run of games where people had given us zero chance of getting any points, so we’ve got five in this run out of seven games. It doesn’t sound like a miraculous return, but when people are thinking you’re going to get zero, it’s a reasonable return.
“We’re going into another big game next week against Arsenal. We know they’re a fine side. Tottenham are a side that have just won three out of their last four, and Arsenal are on a great run, so we’re know these are all tough games. They’re all part of the experience, they’re all part of what we’re learning and we’ve got to take every game as it comes and we’ll be ready for next week.”
