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Burnley are back home after the win at Crystal Palace when we’ll come up against another long serving manager with West Bromwich Albion’s Tony Pulis.

West Brom have just had a difficult run but Pulis said ahead of tomorrow’s game: “I don’t think we’ve played that bad. I think that in the five games that we’ve lost, I don’t think there is any game where you can come off and say the lads were absolutely out of it, that we got completely outplayed or that we were not good enough, or whatever.

“I just don’t think things have gone for us and I think that’s how tight it is in the Premier League. Sometimes you need a break. You need to take your chances, which we haven’t done, but you also need a break as well. And even going back to the Leicester game, they had one shot that they scored from and that’s from a mistake from one of our players so it’s tight margins as I’ve said when we were doing well.

“Things can easily spin the other way and they do spin the other way. We’re not that good to think that we can get through games unless we get breaks at the right time and people take their opportunities and chances.”

West Brom need a further six points to record their best ever season in the Premier League. “We want to get there, Pulis said. “We want to do the best we possibly can over the next four games. They’re four tough games, we know that, but if the stars are all lined up for us and we get a break or two there’s no reason why we can’t do it.”

Sean Dyche referred to Burnley as a smaller version of West Brom this week. Asked if it was a compliment or not, Pulis believed it was. “I know where he’s coming from,” he said. “I think there’s levels that people can achieve and there’s levels that you have to accept you can achieve and Sean has done fantastic to get them promoted again.

“I don’t think he’s got enough credit for taking Burnley back up and he’s had a fantastic season this year. It’s lovely to see a British manager getting the acclaim that maybe one or two of the foreign managers get. It’s nice for Sean to be in a position of almost safety.

“Their home form speaks for itself. We’ve got no inhibitions about anything in respect of what we’ve got to do and what we haven’t got to do there and we know it will be tough. I like Turf Moor, it’s a traditional ground. The supporters are right on top of you. It’s traditionally a very good club and I enjoy going there.”

Burnley are close to safety and another season in the Premier League, but it’s not certain just yet and: “You want to take care of business yourself,” Dyche said, rather than waiting for other teams to lose.

Since last playing at Turf Moor, he said: “We’ve got ourselves into an even better position than we were in, after a very good performance and a very important win, but I’ve reminded the players that there’s still work to be done.

“We never take anything for granted. I certainly haven’t in my whole career and I certainly don’t as a manager, and I encourage the players not to either. The next one comes on Saturday and we’ll be ready to go and perform.”

He added: “It’s a tough division. You can look at it as a few decisions get away from you, a few twists in a game, the odd scratch of luck. You don’t want to rely on that but sometimes you need it. Whatever way you look at it, for a team given no chance, we’re in good shape going into the last three games. That’s the bigger picture but now we’ve got to continue what we’re doing and take care of ourselves.”

We come home having finally won an away game. “Sometimes, it’s one of those things and it’s hard to fathom out,” Dyche said. “But I’ve said, down the weeks, that if you balanced our home form with our away form, and put a couple of the home wins in the away column, I think you’d be happy all ways round.

“For me, it’s points on the table. That’s been the key thing and it still is. If we hadn’t won at Palace but we’d won two out of the next three, then you’d take it. From the media point and for the psychology of our fans really, particularly our away fans, they deserve is as much as anyone.

“They’ve been amazing. They travel all over the country in great voice to get behind the team. That away support’s been there as long as I’ve been here, so they definitely deserved a day like that, but for us, if I’m honest, it’s points on the board we’ve still got points to go and get.

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