It’s about our own performance levels
It’s former manager against current manager again tomorrow and so far it is all square between them since Sean Dyche replaced Eddie Howe in the manager’s seat at Turf Moor.
There have been two draws, in the 2013/14 Championship season, and two wins for each team in the Premier League and speaking ahead of his latest trip back to Turf Moor after a good start to the new season, Howe said: “It has been a good start, there is no denying that. We’re happy with what we’ve done and delivered but there is more to come. Individuals can do even better.
Speaking about Burnley, he said: “When Burnley function well as a team they’re very hard to beat. It’s always special to go back to your former club. In terms of results, Burnley haven’t had the best start, but in terms of performances I think they’ve been good. This will be a very tough game.”
Dyche has not found the winning formula yet this season other than in two home games in the Europa League qualifiers and he knows it will need more hard work on the training ground to start to put things right. “It’s not just working hard. It’s working smart and we’ve kind of gone full circle in such a short space of time,” he said.
“I think most people on the outside thought Burnley would be strong again because they’d proved it last season. I don’t think I was taking it quite as powerfully as that because I know the demands of the Premier League and that you can have these runs.
“Weirdly we’ve kind of ended up being back to underdogs again and what everyone supposes of us, which is the team that historically punches above its weight. What’s happened is down to a mixture of things, I think. We knew the challenges would be there at the start of the season, and it’s definitely been a challenge, but most of all it’s about our own performance levels and doing that properly and correctly.
“We haven’t done that in a couple of games, not all, because we’ve been good in some of the games, particularly against Southampton and the first half against Watford earlier in the season. But some of the other performances haven’t been good enough and we need to sort that as a group and get back to performing at the top of our game and that’s where we haven’t quite found our feet yet.”
He added: “We don’t just sit on what we do and say ‘oh, it will work again’. You have to be open minded about what you are doing and question whether the players are still excited by the challenge, of it’s what they need. The balance to that is not going too far away from what’s been successful.
“We have created a lot of good things here over five and a half years, so we are certainly not going to discount all the good stuff we do. It’s how many different ideas you can have to how you work. Also, it’s about listening to the players. We want them to go out and know their jobs, but add what they think they can to the performances.”
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