Let’s see how far we can take it

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Sean Dyche was an animated figure at the final whistle tonight as Burnley went through another round in the Europa League qualifiers with a 1-0 aggregate victory over Turkish side İstanbul Başakşehir.

He’d seen his much changed side keep a clean sheet and win it with a superb Jack Cork goal seven minutes into extra time. The Turf was a tense place tonight, except on the touchline as Dyche said: “I wasn’t really that nervous tonight. I thought we applied ourselves very well again, with the changes that we made, and there were some very pleasing performances both individually and collectively, against a very good side.

Embed from Getty Images“They proved out there that they are very technical side and we had to combat that and did that over the two legs with two clean sheets. In Istanbul it was a very defensive performance by design and here we tried to be more progressing with two centre forwards, which worked well at times, so overall I am very pleased.

“Joe Hart has made some good saves, but their keeper pulls one off from Aaron early on and that could have changed the game.”

He continued: “In the first half we were very good and in the second they had the upper hand, but we’ve had that before. They are a technical side and they work on keeping the ball, but they didn’t really open us up many times. We have to do what we have to do to win games and we’ve never hidden from that, but in extra time I thought we were running all over them fitness wise and therefore our play improved.

“The strength of character of the players is so important and before extra time I was talking to my group and they were all focused on me. I looked at theirs and there were bodies everywhere and two players catching eyes with their manager. Those moments of respect are the moments of truth for the group. They are very important and I thought tonight our demand in extra time was fantastic.

“Overall the fitness and the desire of the side was there to see. We scored a goal in the 97th minute from pressing their keeper and that’s fantastic, That’s as important a part of the game as anything and it’s a sublime finish.

“There are many ways of playing and many differences in European football, but the one thing that never changes is stopping the ball going in your end and putting it in theirs. I’m just pleased for the fans because they wanted a European tour and they’ve had a mini-one, so let’s see how far we can take it.”

 

 

 

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