I thought there was a real purpose to the performance

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It was Burnley who went through tonight in the League Cup in a penalty shoot out victory against Sheffield United but visiting boss Chris Wilder left Turf Moor with a lot of positives despite his side being knocked out.

He made ten changes, bringing in a number of his new recruits and he said: “I thought it was a really competitive game. I wanted that and Sean would have wanted that. Five debuts, going 1-0 up and scoring a great goal so with a side that’s been in the Premier League for quite a while, an experienced side even though possibly it wasn’t their full hit even though not a million miles off.”

Embed from Getty ImagesHe said of his new signings: “There was always going to be the test of when they came up against Premier League players, how they adapt to the system, to a different way of playing and I thought all the five boys were outstanding. They were excellent. I thought the outfield players were very good, the two full backs gave us exactly what we were looking for, enthusiasm, talent, drive. Burkey (Oliver Burke) stretched the game, Ethan (Ampadu) was outstanding as well so good individual performances.

“We are obviously disappointed to go out of the competition but when it goes to a penalty shoot out anything can happen and we didn’t have a clean scoring record with the five penalties that we had. I can’t not but take positive things out of tonight and as I said all along, it’s not a straightforward pre-season and they’ve got to learn on the job. They all put in committed, impressive performances.”

It was a very positive reaction from Sean Dyche too, other than his concern over another injured player. “It was a tight game,” he said. “I didn’t think we did a lot wrong in the first half and in the second half our mentality was great. We thrive on our mentality, but I also thought some of our play was good and we opened them up a few times.

“We defended well as a group and I thought there was a real purpose to the performance. We made a lot of changes and they were effective. The main thing is, when you change a team, does it look like a team? Sometimes on paper you think so, and when you see it activate you are not sure, but tonight I thought it looked right. We are stretched, but we do believe in the players and they have performed well tonight.”

The worry was over Jόhann Berg Guðmundsson who was stretchered off after less than a quarter of an hour of the game following a challenge from Jack Robinson. Dyche said: “The game has changed. I said to Chris that back in our day that was a standard challenge. Nowadays, it just doesn’t happen. It’s a red card; it’s as simple as that.

“I wasn’t sure at the time, but I saw it again at half time and there was no reason to do it. The players weren’t happy with the challenge at half time, but I managed to get that out of their heads and the thing that disappoints me as a manager is that the officials are there, and the linesman is five yards away and nothing is given.

“We all know that in the Premier League you touch someone’s ear and their legs buckle. There has to be a balance to the decisions, and tonight they got it wrong and we’ve lost a player. It’s not going to be days for Jόhann, I don’t think. We are going to wait and find out, but he has twisted his knee in the challenge and that’s not good news.”

Following Matěj Vydra’s equaliser, the game went to penalties. Nick Pope was the hero on goal, saving their second spot kick while we scored all five. “I thought our lads’ penalties were superb,” Dyche said. “We ran through them yesterday and I said make your mind up and crack it down the middle. None of them did; they all went into the corner and they did a fine job.”

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